#and in a diplomatic capacity too

[cambion-companion]

A Marriage Contract

Eyo...I had an idea LOL what a world!

The scenario of Raphael x reader (gn) being forced into some sort of marriage agreement has been bugging me ALL day! Hopefully some of you lovely folks are as depraved as I am and enjoy this!

“This isn’t exactly what I had in mind.”  

You were sitting opposite Raphael, the firelight flickering orange across his scarlet visage. You watched with bemused interest as, with a black quill, he scratched ink across a sheaf of yellowed parchment.

The cambion took little heed to your agitated words. His posture was relaxed, one long leg stretched out between your own, his tail tapping idly against your thigh where it rested.

“Raphael.”  You leaned forward, catching a glimpse of the words he now wrote in that elegant script of his. “…Hey, I did not agree to doing that every day with you.”

A peeved hiss escaped Raphael’s sharp teeth as he removed quill from paper and sat back, his yellow eyes finally moving to your tense face. “This arrangement is at the behest of one I cannot yet deny.” His long fingers drummed a pattern against the cherrywood table. “Don’t complain too much, pet.  I may begin to think you’re getting cold feet.”

“Not in this sweltering house.”  You quipped back.  Then you pointed again to the sentence he’d scrawled detailing what lurid acts he expected from you. “I will not be doing that.”

“Might I remind you, this is a contract of marriage.”  

“Believe me, I am well aware.”

“You would receive such pleasures in kind.”

This gave you pause, your brow arched in disbelief. “From you?”

Raphael chuckled dryly. “Yes, from me.  Master of the House, your doting husband.”

Your skin prickled. “There’d better be a clause in there for an annulment once all this is over.”

“It’s possible for such a loophole to be penned in.”  Raphael tilted his horned head diplomatically, though his eyes remained hard. “For you to take advantage of should the fires burn too hot.  However, you will always be mine.”

“How romantic.”  You deadpanned.

“I certainly try.”  Raphael rolled his broad shoulders and stretched his neck side to side.  “Now, shall I rescind these latest conditions or are you now more amenable?”

You hesitated, scooting your chair closer so you could better read the script without getting a crick in your neck. “Hmm…yes, alright. You can get rid of the ‘submits to my will in all infernal matters’ bit.”

With a smooth motion Raphael struck a line through the offending words. “Would ‘heeds my counsel in all the doings of my domain’ better suit your tender palate?”

“Rewording the same sentiment isn’t going to get passed me, love.”  You kissed his cheek, teasing.

Sharp claws pierced the flesh of your jaw as, quick as a viper, Raphael grabbed your face with one hand and held you very still.  His face turned and your noses brushed. You felt his warm breath and his hot skin.

The air between the two of you grew tense, riddled with the frustration at your situation and the desire you’d had for one another since meeting. The lust to dominate and own from him and your need to be wanted and no longer alone.

“This marriage contract is forever binding, little mouse. Much more so than those fragile slips of paper from your insipid mortal world. There is not a clause in your wildest imaginings that will free you from me once you sign yourself over.”

You felt a rush of heat flood your cheeks, his strong hand still holding your head firmly. “We have little choice.”

Raphael’s grip tightened and he brought his lips against yours, just enough to leave you craving more. “What a quaint notion, to believe I have no power to deny or evade.”

He did not elaborate, but his message was clear.  Raphael wanted this. The thought didn’t leave you feeling warm and fuzzy.

There was an evident dynamic here that you didn’t have the capacity to fully understand.  It gave you a sense of dread yet sent a thrill through your body.

You gave Raphael a smile bordering on playful. “Your signature mysterious and vaguely threatening answers won’t exactly breed a relationship of trust.”

“You and I have very different concepts of what a marriage should look like.”  Raphael released your jaw and took both your hands, pulling you with one strong movement onto his lap.  His tail wrapped around your waist, securing you against him. “Speaking of ‘breeding’, I have an excellent idea.”

Your retort was silenced as a long tongue and sharp teeth claimed your mouth and drank down your following noises.

#raphael x reader #raphael bg3 #raphael x tav #raphael baldur's gate 3 #bg3 drabble

[magicaldragons]

family dynamics.

– Varadha –

Varadha is a wildcat among rabid dogs. He is no less capable of violence or twisted games, but he operates from a completely different wavelength, which is his biggest strength.

Rudra is a typical bully. He is someone who, from childhood, has always teamed up against the minority in an effort to seem powerful, because he cares too much about perception and not enough about true value

so it makes sense, that he’d find validation in treating Varadha – a stepbrother who is so far removed from how people normally behave in Khansaar – condescendingly.

he is specifically envious of Varadha – most of the hate Rudra feels for Varadha stems from an insecure desire to elevate his own worth.

but Radha Rama?

why does she hate Varadha? – she's above Rudra's pettiness and definitely knows better than to waste her time and energy on power plays when she could work on herself.

but we know that she's hated Varadha since his birth – even more than Rudra does, in fact.

It must have started out as sibling rivalry, especially with how eager Radha Rama is for Rajamannar's approval. Varadha, ever since his birth, was probably a threat for that spot – was possibly even Rajamannar's favorite before he gave away his honor territory. and after that? the hatred only grew. We know that once Varadha lost his position as a lord, he was shunned from court, and he spent more time among the people of Khansaar than his family. and this gave him more exposure throughout Khansaar and definitely earned him a particular reputation for how level-headed, clever, and genuine he was.

it slowly became more and more obvious, (to Radha Rama especially) as Varadha grew older, that he inspired devotion in people – he had people that would die for him, and she could never understand how he'd done it, especially with how hard she'd worked to be seen as valuable.

so it frustrated her that Varadha, even with his inherent, deliberate softness, and the way he portrayed himself, was able to receive such love and warmth from the people who knew him personally, and that maybe played a part in how much more she worked for the approval of Khansaar's king:

Rajamannar.

Rajamannar is someone who definitely saw the soft power Varadha had for winning hearts, especially with his coexisting capability for exerting his own power.

It takes a diplomatic, yet terrifyingly strong man, to build and maintain an empire, and obviously, this is something that even Rajamannar was unable to do perfectly, with his need to annihilate an entire tribe to secure the throne for himself.

Shivamannar was the first and only to be capable of doing this, and Rajamannar sees that same strength, tenacity, and authenticity in Varadha. As a father, he was definitely proud of Varadha in the beginning and could see his capacity for greatness.

After Varadha disappointed him by giving away his kada, though, Rajamannar still cared for him and saw his potential, but could no longer publically support a son who had disregarded their honor & disrespected not only the territory but also Rajamannar's decision to put him in charge of that territory – especially since Varadha refused to tell him why he did it.

and now that Rajamannar, just like Radha Rama, has realized the extent of Varadha's quiet power, most of his pride has turned to wariness.

because as a father, he can be proud.

but as a king?

Varadha is a threat.

Which leads us to the fact that: Rajamannar, Rudra, and Radha Rama have been hostile to the one person who has the capacity and the qualities to rule, but wouldn't have actively sought out the throne if they hadn't placed him in a spot where the only way for him to attain respect and feel valued was to gain the throne.

Essentially, by treating him they way they have, in an effort to keep him away from court and in fear that he will surpass them, they've dug their own graves.

— love, a definition: part two [part one / part three]

#what's that quote about meeting your destiny on the road you take to avoid it? #radha rama understands varadha – and knows that the best way to get to him isn't to threaten him – but his loved ones #headcanon that varadha tried many times in childhood to befriend radha rama. but it never worked because she was unreceptive #love. a definition #part two #salaar #varadha rajamannar

[jewishvitya]

This post is. A personal need to vent again.

Daniel Levy: "I personally believe that Israelis can never have security until Palestinians have security. That equation, the equation that you can impose a regime of structural violence on another people, that you can deny another people their basic rights and you will live with your own security, that equation never works. And I hope one day - Palestinians of course, but also, Jewish Israelis will experience the idea of how liberating it can be to no longer be an oppressor."

It's not possible, and it's also unfair. They deserve security.

I get accused of so many things, but I believe that we can't have safety without a fundamental change.

And I care about our morality. Once in a while I think about the cheerful, well-mannered, compassionate kids I used to babysit in the West Bank settlements. Kids who would then fantasize about being soldiers and hurting Palestinians, because they were taught this is heroic. A six years old child, a child who's always generous and always empathetic, with a huge smile talking about killing. And I can't stop thinking about those children.

Writing this, I started thinking about a song that I wanted to share. It's a song that makes me very emotional. Some lines in it are about a girl screaming, "love me, don't teach me war." Crying for innocence. And then realized... it's a song about peace, but I don't know what kind. Does it consider Palestinians and their suffering. Or does it imagine a future where they aren't here. I don't know how to check for the history of the lyrics and the politics of the person who wrote them. I can't trust our desire for peace.

I told this story here before, but for me in many ways it shows the nature of the occupation and what it does to the people perpetuating it. My classmate and I were around 14 years old. We walked by the electric fence and we saw a Palestinian child playing near her home. I can't remember how old she might have looked, but think anywhere between 4 and 8. My classmate had a chocolate bar and she broke off a piece and waved it at the child, asking if she wants it. The child didn't speak Hebrew, but she saw the chocolate, so she nodded, all excited. My classmate threw the chocolate past the fence and it landed in bushes. The child started looking for it.

And my classmate had so much disdain in her voice when she laughed and called her a pig. Just a child wanting some sweets that were offered to her.

My classmate was a young teenage girl who had a whole nation dehumanized for her, to the point where a child wanting a piece of chocolate was something to hate. And I don't want to pretend I was better. I just thought it wasn't very nice. I was always kinda diplomatic, trying to be civil, and I still lean in that direction. So it bothered me as impolite, but not beyond that. It took a few years before I thought about this and was horrified. Just like with the kids I got to babysit. At the time, it was my normal. Now it makes me want to cry.

I hate that these ways of thinking exist in us. I want to change things for us too. Because no group of people is inherently bad, but given dynamics of oppression, every group has this capacity. And I don't want to see people I love causing harm.

And since the oppression is the root of it - I have hope for healing too. But today, I just... can't seem to stop crying for very long at a time. The tears don't want to stop. The hope feels very far and all I have is grief.

Children shouldn't be dreaming of war and killing.

#riki babbles

[thormanick]

All the Kavetham/Haikaveh ideas I don't have capacity to currently write, a very detailed list:

(Which I am humbly placing here before you. Be warned: this post is an incredibly long one!)

1. Fatui!Kaveh AU, where the night before the meeting happens between Kaveh and Alhaitham at the tavern, Kaveh gets a deal from Fatui representatives to work on a huge project in Snezhnaya. Kaveh is sceptical about it, but decides to accept the offer during the dialogue with Alhaitham (seeing himself as a burden, Kaveh decides that he will cause more trouble to Alhaitham than the Fatui, thus he decides to accept their offer even if it seems too good to be true). He tells Alhaitham about his decision to leave for Snezhnaya, and so the two relatively amicably/peacefully part their ways (not without Alhaitham testing Kaveh's reasoning a bit, but Kaveh's resolve remains strong).

And so, Kaveh leaves for Snezhnaya, where he gets to work on several huge projects for the next several years under Sandrone. Most of them are related to construction, engineering and reverse-engineering of Khaenri'ahn and Khaenri'ah-inspired technology, and he gets barely any time to work on his personal projects (he's overworked and exhausted and doesn't get much time and opportunity to be creative; however, the payments are good and he's on his way to getting out of debt, which is practically the sole reason driving him forward. The projects get progressively more complicated and, in a way, unhinged - engineering military equipment is alright, but working with the remains of Khaenri'ahn technology, dead gods and such proves to be... mentally taxing. Everything happens very gradually though, so Kaveh does not immediately notice the true scale of where the Fatui are ready to go to achieve certain goals). Kaveh doesn't really like the work environment of the Fatui, but he does his best (the Harbingers creep him out whenever he gets to see them on a rare official occasion (he might specifically dislike Pantalone because the Harbinger keeps picking at him for his debt, given a chance), but Sandrone's a decent boss who is somewhat encouraging and invested in his work and personal projects. She might be especially interested in Mehrak's existence and operation). Overall, everything goes quite smoothly for Kaveh, even if he doesn't feel quite at home in Snezhnaya and is aware of how dangerous the Fatui can be. He does not consider himself to be paranoid, but the other shoe has to drop at some point - and that happens when the new Acting Grand Sage of Sumeru gets to visit Snezhnaya on a diplomatic mission (aka: Kaveh reconnects with Alhaitham & Co for the first time in what feels like forever). The situation gets complicated when Kaveh realizes that Sandrone encourages the reestablishment of his connection with Alhaitham specifically - and she never encourages an action if she doesn't directly contribute from it.

Feelings, emotions and shenanigans ensue.

TLDR: Kaveh's doing his best despite being restricted in his ways of work, prevented from realizing most of his creative projects and slowly but surely building emotional walls around himself because Fatui and Snezhnaya; Sandrone being a kind of decent boss with sorta good work ethic but horrendous morals who is not exactly a good influence on Kaveh's idealistic tendencies and guilt complex; Fatui being contextually horrifying but kinda normal coworkers if you don't look at them too close; Alhaitham trying his best as a political figure (Nahida help him) while also trying to get Kaveh to return home with him (because he misses him); the main conflict revolving around Kaveh and his life choices with Sandrone and Alhaitham being kind of foils to each other (with Sandrone gradually destroying Kaveh's idealistic morals and playing on his guilt to get the most out of his potential as an innovator, and with Alhaitham actively trying to resolve Kaveh's guilt and show him that, despite their arguments, Kaveh's idealism still has place in the world and can co-exist with other philosophies). There might or might not be some macguffin-esque Deshret relic that both Akademia and Fatui hunt for that eventually brings the whole crew back to Sumeru. Kaveh might or might not get a chance to meet a fragment of Deshret's spirit within the mentioned relic. But there definitely will be a happy end for everyone here (Deshret will make sure of it).

2. Calamity!AU. The new Cataclysm comes, enveloping all Seven Nations, and so Sumeru does its best to survive. The cities are ruined, and the people gather together in random places to survive. Alhaitham gets to live within one of the settlements, established by the Akademiya. While trying to survive the first wave of the new Calamity, he is also looking for Kaveh; after an argument between the two the architect left for an expedition to the Desert, right before the new Calamity began. Unfortunately, the news comes that his group should have been around Tunigi Hollow - one of the spots in Sumeru where the first wave of the new Calamity hit the hardest. There is no concrete information on whether Kaveh's group survived or not. Alhaitham, not loosing hope, does his best to find any information on Kaveh's whereabouts, but due to Sumeru becoming extremely dangerous to traverse and disjointed as a result of the new Calamity, the search stretches out for almost a decade.

One day Alhaitham helps a caravan, traversing the forests to get to one of the settlements, to fight off the monsters. Unexpectedly, Kaveh turns out to be one of the members of the caravan. Their reunion is almost cut short by the caravan's need to keep going, but Alhaitham convinces Kaveh to join him instead. The two return to the new Sumeru city settlement, where Alhaitham lives and works under the watch of Akademiya and Lord Kusanali. It appears that during his years of travels around the destroyed Sumeru Kaveh learned new ways of architectural construction that would be more efficient against the monsters, born by the Calamity. He also seems to behave quite differently, hardened by the experiences of the past years. Alhaitham proposes for Kaveh to stay with him in the city, and Kaveh accepts. The feelings, new routines, dealings with the changed versions of each other and attempts to find new pace of life in the new world ensue.

TLDR: The world might be ending and impossible to live in, but even so each new day is brighter when the person one loves is by their side.

3. Another Cataclysm!AU, where Kaveh and Alhaitham get assigned separate missions in the grander scheme of things created to prevent the coming of a new Calamity. The plan succeeds and the world remains safe, but not without heavy losses: amongst many others, Kaveh does not survive while carrying out his mission.

Decades pass as Alhaitham goes through his grieving process. Eventually, one evening on the anniversary of the Calamity's prevention, Alhaitham wanders to a place he and Kaveh used to visit together. A Ley Line disruption occurs, and he gets to see a glimpse of Kaveh through it. They have a conversation; the Ley Line apparition (a memory of Kaveh) is convinced that Alhaitham is from the future, and so they talk a lot about the Calamity, whether it was prevented, and about each other's futures. Alhaitham can't bring himself to tell Kaveh that he does not survive the Calamity, but he does tell Kaveh that his architectural legacy lives on. Kaveh commends Alhaitham on his achievements (though not an acting grand sage for a very long time, Alhaitham kept playing an important role throughout Sumeru's history, helping to keep it safe).

Eventually, their time runs out. Ley Line disorder starts gradually disappearing. Alhaitham urges Kaveh to be careful and stay safe, knowing that the Calamity (on Kaveh's side) is yet to come. Kaveh laughs and tells him that on his side, Alhaitham just told him the same words after they finished the debriefing session, related to the Calamity. He says that he was feeling very nervous, but that seeing future-Alhaitham made him convinced that they are on the right path.

And so, the Ley Line disorder disappears. Alhaitham spends some more time at the spot before returning home. Despite painful memories having been brought up, his heart feels a bit lighter.

TLDR: closure comes unexpectedly, takes many forms and does not erase the pain in an instant, but, nevertheless, it heals.

4. AU! where Kaveh and Alhaitham are both magical birds that can transform into humans (and half-humans).

They live together in the depths of Sumeru forest - a domain of a long lost God of Wisdom. Kaveh's feathers are rumoured to bring blessings, while Alhaitham's feathers, on the contrary, are said to bring bad luck or even curses. Humans, living at the edge of magical forest, kinda worship them, but also prefer not to interact with them, primarily because Alhaitham is not happy when others trespass on his lands, and because searching for Kaveh is extremely hard (he's often off working on his projects deep within the forest), and the magical forest is very dangerous on its own. So, the humans build their cities outside of the Sumeru forest, and Alhaitham and Kaveh peacefully live together in the depths of it.

Despite Kaveh and Alhaitham living together for a long time, their opinions on humanity are diametrically opposed: Alhaitham barely tolerates humans, finding them to be reckless, meddling, cowardly and deceitful; Kaveh, on the contrary, finds humans to be creative, inspiring, free and beautiful in their own way. Throughout the years, Kaveh manages to build somewhat of an amicable relationship with the humans, living at the edge of the forest: he learns more about their traditions and arts, while the humans receive his guidance and blessings in various matters of living, craftsmanship and arts. Eventually, Kaveh's knowledge and magical powers catch the eye of Lord Sangemah Bay, who resides in and governs one of the bigger settlements at the forest's border. She makes a deal with Kaveh that, despite providing him with valuable (in his eyes) experience of working with humans on some of his grandest architectural projects, costs him a lot - meaning he has to give away lots of his blessed feathers, which makes his remaining magic much weaker (and generally undermines his health for a bit). Alhaitham is not a huge fan of such approach (in his eyes, Kaveh is wasting his powers and time for nothing, endangering himself), and so a conflict between him and Kaveh breaks. As a result, Kaveh flees their home, secluding himself while he's focusing on other projects he finds curious. Kaveh keeps working with humans, and though Alhaitham certainly keeps an eye on Kaveh's wellbeing, he does not make it easy for humans to reach him. So what if there are new random magical seals, obstacles, almost-traps and riddles appearing here and there when people try to get to Kaveh? It's a magical forest, things happen! (Kaveh knows that Alhaitham does this on purpose, and Alhaitham knows that Kaveh knows, and it leads to them indirectly, and then directly bickering and arguing. The magical forest quite possibly grows very tired of them. Their friends Tighnari and Cyno certainly do, but alas.)

The new equilibrium, found by Alhaitham and Kaveh, is challenged once more when Kaveh leaves to the Lord Sangemah Bay's city to direct yet another one of his grand projects. They do not see each other for a long while. Despite all the challenges, Kaveh's relationship with Dori gradually grows stronger - the two value their partnership - and Kaveh ends up making friends amongst humans. However, not everyone is happy about Lord Sangema Bay's growing friendship with the "deity of blessings" personified. As some people come to despise her for her wealth, influence and ever growing power, so do they come to despise the bird of paradise.

When the project is complete, the time for celebration comes. Kaveh gets to attend a feast by Dori's side as a guest of honour, and is invited to stay the night in her palace before returning to the forest. Kaveh agrees: he's been spending all his days and nights at the building site, and resting a night before returning home would be nice. As the night goes on, however, Kaveh begins to feel weary and unwell - the new type of wine he was served did him no good. He excuses himself early for the night and, as soon as he gets to his bed, he's out cold.

After an undetermined amount of time (in what appears to be the middle of the night), Kaveh wakes up because of immense pain in his back.

As he gradually comes to his senses, he has a horrible realization: one of his wings was cut off when he was asleep. Alerting the guards and Dori yields no results: the intruder escaped, presumably with Kaveh's wing, and there are no traces of them left. While Kaveh gets immediately attended to, he goes in shock and, eventually, loses consciousness.

When the messengers form the city arrive to the forest, Alhaitham receives them reluctantly at first, but as soon as he hears of what happened, he rushes to the city. He ends up taking Kaveh back to the forest, hoping that its healing magic will help restore his wing. However, nothing seems to work: neither spells, nor the powers of nature, not even Tighnari's medicine. Though the wound is slowly healing, Kaveh remains unconscious for days. To get more information on what happened, Alhaitham returns to the city to question Dori together with Cyno (who's also to continue the investigation within the city once Alhaitham returns home), while Tighnari stays with Kaveh.

Though the questioning concludes that Dori knows nothing and is willing to assist in the search of the perpetrator, Cyno concludes that she was not thorough enough in ensuring Kaveh's safety and overall security of the celebration in general, revealing that Dori recklessly cut corners here and there. Furious, Alhaitham leaves Dori his cursed feather, giving her an ultimatum: she has to find the perpetrator and give them to Alhaitham to deal the final punishment. Until then, her city is doomed to slowly crumble into decay and oblivion. Dori accepts the deal.

Alhaitham returns to the forest to look after Kaveh, while Cyno remains in the city to continue the search. When Alhaitham comes back, Kaveh is finally awake. However, he remains extremely closed-off, practically a shadow of himself. The recovery process is slow and challenging, but Alhaitham does his best to support Kaveh in all ways that matter. Kaveh struggles with healing: the loss of a wing affected not only his body, but also his mental state and magic. He cannot transform, he can barely use any of his magical skills, and he cannot fly anymore, which hurts him most of all. It takes a while for Kaveh to get on his feet (quite literally), even longer to finally leave his room. He also feels guilty for being in Alhaitham's care, because he remembers all of the Alhaitham warnings about the humans he didn't listen to, and so lots of internal conflict ensues.

Meanwhile Alhaitham does all he can to try and navigate the situation. He looks after Kaveh's healing process; brings back his blueprints and equipment from Kaveh's place so that he has enough to work with if he wishes; he also (to the best of his ability) remodels their home to make it more accessible to Kaveh. Given that their natural method of moving around their house was flying (whether in form of birds of half-humans), Alhaitham now implements more adjustments for walking or climbing. (When Kaveh feels good enough to leave his room, he's amazed by what Alhaitham managed to achieve. He also helps fix some of the constructions, given he's the one with the experience in architecture.) Alhaitham and Kaveh grow closer, slowly unpacking and mending their relationship, turning it into something new and beautiful.

At the same time, Alhaitham continues to watch the forest borders - to make sure that no intruders interrupt Kaveh's recovery and their peaceful life together. One day he notices an interesting sight: a small, but beautiful shrine appeared right by the forest. He decides to investigate; upon approaching the shrine, he meets Nilou (whom he saw in the palace when he visited Dori). She explains to him that, after he and Kaveh left the city, a group of people decided to organize a shrine, dedicated to Kaveh, to pray for his recovery. Nilou explains that in their eyes it's the least they can offer for all the help that their city received in the past and as amends for the pain they have caused. Alhaitham warns her not to get any closer to the forest, but the action of people leaves a lasting impression on him.

Meanwhile, Cyno's investigation progresses. Cyno writes to Alhaitham that together with Dori they managed to find and capture the perpetrator. Questioning reveals no useful information, but Cyno suspects that there might be more to the attack on Kaveh than they anticipated. To uphold his end of the deal Alhaitham goes to the city to deliver the punishment to the attacker and to undo the curse he put on Dori's city. Before he leaves, Kaveh, scared of what might happen to Alhaitham, sews into his cloak a blessed feather for protection (because Alhaitham wouldn't accept it outright). While Alhaitham is away, Kaveh begins working on a new project: a mechanical wing.

When Alhaitham gets to the city, he is led to the cell where the attacker is being held. Cyno and Dori are by his side for the final questioning. The man - a mere mortal (with strange red-ish eyes), one of Dori's citizens - keeps talking in circles, making less and less sense with each new word. Alhaitham lets Cyno and Dori go before rendering the punishment. When the curse (one of Alhaitham's darkest yet) is finally prepared, suddenly, the tables are turned. The perpetrator attacks Alhaitham, but his movements seem unnatural, almost like those of a puppet. Alhaitham realizes, that the man is being controlled by someone with prowess for strong, incredibly dark magic that seems similar to that of the Desert. The strange puppet manages to overpower Alhaitham in a fight, but cannot harm him (due to the protection from Kaveh's feather). The perpetrator manages to escape, taking with him Alhaitham's cursed feather (they seemed to be pleased to receive it. Alhaitham fears to think what they will use it for).

Dori and Cyno pick up the investigation, with Cyno going straight to the Desert. Dori begins reinforcing the city (her people discover that Alhaithams curse (now lifted) awakened Miasma deep under the ground. The Miasma begins to slowly spread, seemingly in the direction of the Sumeru Forest). Cyno sends back a message, confirming that strong and dark magic seems to be gathering within the Desert, possibly for the purpose of destroying the magical forest.

Alhaitham manages to get back to Kaveh and tell him of what happened in the city. In order to be able to protect the forest together with Alhaitham, Kaveh doubles down on his efforts to create a mechanical working wing. Everything works, besides the golden feathers - they need to be blessed in order to allow the mechanism to work as intended, but Kaveh does not have enough power for it. Alhaitham takes a risk and brings the feathers to the shrine, created by Nilou and other humans, so that they could bless them for Kaveh. (They are short of one feather eventually, and Alhaitham gives Kaveh one of his own, his first blessed feather, to complete the wing.)

TLDR: Kaveh works on restoring his wing and faith in himself and humanity; Alhaitham learns that humanity is not always evil. Dori and Cyno discover that the escaped perpetrator (caugh controlled by Dottore caugh) used Kaveh to get to Alhaitham to gain his cursed feather for completing some sort of ancient ritual to unseal the forbidden knowledge magic deep within the Desert in roder to unleash it on the magical forest, slumbering God of Wisdom and human cities. Kaveh learns to curse his feathers (while opposing Dottore in a final fight), and Alhaitham learns to bless his. Humans and Sumeru Forest continue to coexist peacefully. Alhaitham and Kaveh live together happily ever after.

5. Pacific Rim!AU, where Kaveh and Alhaitham used to be pilots of a Jaeger, but during one of their battles they suffered too much damage. In order to save Alhaitham and what remains of their Jaeger, Kaveh takes most of the damage by severing already unstable connection between Alhaitham and Jaeger's system. Both barely survive the encounter, but meanwhile Alhaitham manages to recover fast, the damage Kaveh has taken leaves him in a critical condition, eventually resulting in him being unable to ever pilot a Jaeger ever again (and putting many new restraints on his usual daily life).

As soon as Kaveh comes to his senses, the two have a huge fight about Kaveh's rash decision, and eventually break off their friendship. They don't see each other for a long, long time.

As the time goes on, Kaveh learns how to live with the changes that his body sustained with the help of his service dog Mehrak. Eventually he takes on a job at one of the Jaeger construction facilities (together with his friend Tighnari), studying Kaiju and creating new Jaeger modifications - though no Kaiju has been seen in the past several years, the world is still afraid of their return.

When the suspicion of the new Kaiju appearance arises, new pilot recruits and ex-pilots are summoned to the facility. There, Kaveh meets Alhaitham for the first time in years. After their fallout, Alahitham resigned from piloting Jaegers, yet now he had no choice but to return to train new recruits (and possibly resume his role of a Jaeger pilot). Now once again the two have to work together as a part of a team in face of approaching danger, trying to resolve their past conflicts and overcome their fears and insecurities along the way (when deep down they simply want to keep each other safe).

TLDR: Kaveh & service animal Mehrak is a neat concept I'd love to see more of, just as a concept in general. I think this one could be an interesting story idea centered mostly around Kaveh's day to day life. Additionally, Alhaitham who used to be only drift compatible with Kaveh but now suddenly discovers he's drift compatible with Cyno. I need more Cyno & Alhaitham camaraderie I think it would do them lots of good (at least in this specific AU setting lol).

6. Oxenfree!AU where Kaveh and Alhaitham are two ex-best friends turned reluctant coworkers (photo-journalist and journalist respectively) working on writing a piece about the disappearances of a group of teenagers that happened at the Edwards Island several years prior (timeline somewhere between the first and the second games). The radio shenanigans ensue, making the two face their past, possible futures and, most importantly, their present. (In Oxenfree tuning into certain radio sequences can temporarily mess up time-space shenanigans, just fyi).

TLDR: I just think that this setting could facilitate some character exploration that would be very fun.

7. Modern MermanKaveh!AU, post-fallout, where it's a little bit more about haunting Alhaitham (and the narrative), than being a merman. Due to an unfortunate set of circumstances, Kaveh drowns one day, trying to save someone from the water. Due to an unfortunate set of circumstances, he doesn't really die, being stuck in between (existence and death, normal life and the necessity to live in water). Kaveh manages, for quite a while even!

But of course Alhaitham has to come back and turn his world upside down once again.

TLDR: can you tell Alhaitham's quote about drowning stuck with me huh (and I made it literal lol). On a serious note... Idk, vibes??? I want to see the "stuck in the middle" Kaveh, whatever that entails. Some existential explorations. And the development of his relationship with Alhaitham, of course. // Kaveh is a merman unable to fully live the life he used to have, and Alhaitham doesn't know that he survived (for a while), alternatively "let me help to save you from metaphorical and literal drowning" Alhaitham and "I learned to live like this, this is what my norm now looks like" Kaveh.

8. Another Modern MermanKaveh!AU/DrownedGhostKaveh!AU, because I apparently have no self-control (I feel like I should also clarify that whenever I mention a mermaid, I think of them more as of ghosts of drowned people and less as mermaids-mermaids, the half-human half-marine creature ones). This idea was initially prepared for chili/zhongchi but it's been sooooooooooooooooooo long and I still haven't done anything substantial for it so I'm borrowing it from myself for myself and tweaking it for kavetham because I figured it could fit them. So here it goes,

Alhaitham is a scientist/marine biologist that moves from the city to a much smaller port town, getting himself a place in a local partially repurposed lighthouse. Kaveh is a merman, who has been dead for a long while and who's been living within local waters ever since he drowned. Alhaitham leads a very isolated life, going through a rather rough patch emotionally (maybe a badly ended past relationship and relocation from an established group of friends to a remote place brought up past negative emotions related to loss that were bottled up for a while. who knows, not me). Anyways, Alhaitham's not doing too well, but seaside walks help him unwind, even if for a short periods of time. During one of such walks, he finds an old pendant washed ashore. He picks up his find, hoping to do some research on it outside of his work time (because research is his fun-time).

He expects this to be a brief excursion into local history. He does not expect to become haunted by the ghost of a man to whom this pendant belonged to way back when.

Kaveh, in turn, is extremely excited to finally, finally be able to get out of the sea to the surface. He intends to stay ashore as long as possible and, well, if he just so gets to amuse himself by haunting a grumpy marine biologist that refuses to believe in merpeople, ghosts of drowned and other supernatural occurences - who's he to say no?

TLDR: this AU can go two ways (in my eyes): the happy ending way and probably more gothic-horror-story-esque ending. So, Alahitham is cursed to be haunted by Kaveh: for a while he's the only one who can see him, with Kaveh being something akin to a ghost. However, the longer Kaveh haunts Alhaitham, the more human he becomes (others can see him, he cannot phase through walls anymore, etc.). The curse in itself goes something like this: the cursed thing, after being picked up/taken in, cannot be thrown away and will always come back. The ghost, tied to the haunted thing, shall haunt whoever picks the cursed thing (the thing should be tied to the ghost, but may not necessarily belong to them) and drain their life energy. The ghost can become free and human again if the haunting goes long enough and they kill the human who picked the cursed object in the end during a very specific time that doesn't occur too often (proverbial blue moon, idk). If they don't kill the human and decide to let them go, then the ghost will seize to exist and the human will regain their strength. (An alternative option to the ghost dying for a less angsty au: the ghost voluntarily takes back the cursed object and returns to the place where they died, but then they will never be able to haunt anyone ever again. The effect of the curse on the haunted remain, but much weaker).

In this case, let's say Kaveh and Alhaitham stay by each other's side from half a year to a year, idk. They grow closer, eventually becoming friends and maybe more (the usual kavetham shenanigans Kaveh falls first but Alhaitham falls harder). Alhaitham's mental state gradually improves, yet overall he becomes weaker because of the curse (to the point that it becomes a serious concern), which Kaveh blames himself for. The appointed time approaches (both Kaveh and Alhaitham are in on the details of the curse), and Kaveh, seeing it as an opportunity to set Alhaitham free, manages to separate himself from Alhaitham. Kaveh is ready to return to the sea/merge with it (ah yes the classic Little Mermaid influence does anybody feel it lol). However, Alhaitham sees through his plan and arrives just in time to stop him. They have a confrontation. Eventually, they manage to lift the curse (as you can see I have not figured out exactly how this can happen but! it definitely can!) with Kaveh becoming human again and Alhaitham regaining his health. The two continue to live together happily ever after.

The other scenario is practically the same, but it's more ghothic? and abstract (and probably more suitable for the og pairing it was made for, but i'll throw it in anyways). I have not engaged with gothic literature much and thus don't have much experience in how it works/how to write it, but the idea is that Kaveh is more of a projection of Alhaitham's grief than a ghost fo a drowned person (in other words, he's definitely a ghost, but his presence is also much more symbolical). The story follows quite similar beats, except the setting of the curse is a bit different: it's more of a "kill first or be killed" thingy with a deadline. Kaveh earnestly tries to drown Alhaitham at first through various means, but the more time they spend together, the more Kaveh sees of Alhaitham's life and pain and feels sympathetic for him. Despite the curse, Kaveh tires to help Alhaitham in various ways; and it works! Alhaitham gradually begins to feel better; the two grow closer to each other (more in a platonic way).

So now the precedent is that though Alhaitham's overall doing better, the curse still preys on him, hindering his life in various ways that become more and more serious/dangerous (the curse's deadline approaches, and it tries to survive the best way it can through Kaveh's influence on Alhaitham). Eventually, Kaveh lets Alhaitham go, merging with the sea (once again, yes, it was partially inspired by the Little Mermaid). Alhaitham realizes what happened and tries to look for Kaveh, but it is in vain.

Eventually, life goes on.

Bonus Elden Ring AU (because guess who suddenly went on a lore video watching spree): Kaveh is a craftsman and one of the inhabitants of Castle Morne who managed to escape before it was overrun by Misbegotten. He's a follower of St. Trina and Miquella (he doesn't follow Miquella at first, but slowly he comes to suspect that the two are one and the same). After escaping from Castle Morne, he finds his way to Jarburg, where he is welcomed to stay and be the new Potentate.

Alhaitham is from a distant branch of Carian royal family and a scholar at the Academy of Raya Lucaria. Quite possibly explored an area of studies similar to Sellen's. Eventually he separates himself from both Academy and his family, becoming a wandering scholar.

The two meet somewhere nearby Jarburg when Kaveh gets ambushed by the same people who were trying to get to Alhaitham. The two fight them off. Kaveh, trying to help injured Alhaitham, leads him to Jarburg. The two continue living together there ever since (not without hiccups, but they're doing their best).

TLDR: this one is short and very simple because I just started diving into the Elden Ring's lore, but I just. Really wanted to make some AU for them. I also desperately wanted it to be peaceful and happy one despite it being a seeming impossibility for anything dark souls/elden ring related, but one can dream. If I were to make this one darker I'd probably expand on the duality of their two characters here, and how Alhaitham probably used to conjure spells on humans (with gaining knowledge being his sole life purpose for a long time) and has challenges with comprehending the world outside of a framework of pure logic, and how Kaveh gets an increasing tendency of escaping to the dream world/wherever Miquella is in order to alleviate his mental turmoil (maybe he witnessed too much during his escape from the Castle), and how the two have opposing perspectives on the idea of worshipping gods, and- like, there's a lot that can be done. But I also just really really really want them to simply be happy together in a jar village, leading a peaceful life.

That's it for now! Thank you for reading all of this, I can't commend your patience enough if you got to the end of this list!!!✨🎉✨

Maybe in the future I will unpack some of these aus. who knows.

#if you made it till the end you're officially a hero #sorry for so many words lol #genshin impact #afinna explores teyvat #genshin impact kaveh #genshin impact alhaitham #kavetham #haikaveh #alhaitham x kaveh #genshin impact writing #genshin impact writing ideas #magical birds au my beloved (can you tell lol) #maybe one day #one day i might write it #i was sure i'd never write the inquisitioner x witch kavetham AU but guess what #istg the first chapter should be ready sometime this year. probably. i hope. i dream of it... #pacific rim au is also something i just cradle gently in my hands. weird apocalyptic-esque setting but make it more a piece of life thing #in order to better unpack the relationships between people and various internal turmoils #and the fatui au!!! i want fatui to be weird menacing coworkers that end up being weirdly decent!!! sometimes!!! #idk i just think kaveh and sandrone could be a great work duo #and just the interactions with others could be sooooo much fun #anyways hope these ideas are. decent #also lowkey i need more dori-kaveh-alhaitham shenanigans #like alhaitham is canonically banned from seeing dori as far as i remember [well. blacklisted from the market or something similar] #granted it's probably bc he's with the Akademiya but like. Are We Sure [glances at Kaveh's debt] #anyways i just think there can be some exploration done here lol #also a hot take probably but. we need more 'Dori the Scary Businesswoman that Seems Inhumane But is Actually Wise' #like I want her to push others to their limits for mutual/personal gain BUT doing so knowing exactly when to stop and not cross the line #she is The Monkey's Paw for people who come to her. anyways i just find her interesting #yay that's it thanks for reading all of it have a great day byeeeeeeeeeeeee!

[checkoutmybookshelf]

The Boys are Back in Town

Most of the X-Wing series focused on either Wraith or Rogue squadron in their full capacities and on standard missions. That is NOT this book. This book focuses on Wedge Antillies, Wes Janson, Tycho Celchu, and Derek "Hobbie" Klivian as they slide inexorably from a diplomatic mission to something that Padme Amidala would unquestionably describe as "aggressive negotiations." Let's talk Starfighters of Adumar.

When you have a planet that has evolved outside of either imperial or republic influence that reveres pilots to an arguably unhealthy degree and you can't drag Luke Skywalker out of whatever he is currently doing, you get Wedge "I blew up two Death Stars, you don't scare me" Antilles. Wedge then puts together a crack team of his three best pilot buddies to hammer out a treaty between Adumar and the New Republic (I'd be LYING if I told you I was picturing anything other than Adam Sandler casting his best friends and taking them on epic vacations and incidentally making a movie for this bit).

As per usual, things go pear-shaped basically before they even get boots down on Adumar, because among its other problems, Adumar loves the HELL out of dueling. To the death. Usually with starfighters. Some asshole decides to try to increase his personal clout by shooting Wedge down as they fly in. This doesn't work, but hot damn does it set the tone...

The toxic dueling culture is not limited to snubfighters, however. Cheriss ke Hanadi (the undisputed queen of duels with blastswords) guides Red Squadron through the twists and turns of Adumari culture. That does not stop Wes from getting in a duel at the diplomatic reception, though. This duel is incredible because it's Wes giving an object lesson in how to humiliate the living hell out of an overly cocky opponent with a blastsword while functionally unarmed. This fight is glorious, and it's a beautiful follow-up to the "getting ready for the ball" scene our boys get to have where Wes lights up like a kid at Christmas when he discovers that blastswords are basically "blaster[s] that you have to hit people with."

Cheriss gets done a wee bit dirty by this book, because she basically develops a crush on Wedge, and when she finds out that he and Iella have gotten together, she sets herself up to get murdered by fighting a stupid number of duels in a row. The rest of Red Squardon steps in though, and as an added bonus, the New Republic medics give her a medication for her chronic vertigo to allow Cheriss to become a pilot. This series literally is not here for anyone who isn't a New Republic pilot, so I don't love Cheriss's arc, but honestly it could have been a lot worse, so I'm not complaining too hard.

The draw for this book though, is unquestionably the character work in our four protagonist pilots. The plot of the novel is pretty simple, all things considered, so Allston takes the opportunity to really dig into character for our boys, and getting to follow them on a somewhat nontraditional mission and using their skills as best they can is just FUN. As a friend says, this book is delicious candy fluff, and the characters are the candies.

Even when the mission goes directly to hell and Red Squadron has to run the gauntlet for their lives, the choices and twists and turns are largely character-driven. That makes what could have been a run-of-the-mill climactic escape into a really tense, well-constructed series of choices and consequences that are just FUN because of the characters who have been dropped into the situation.

There's objectively not too much substance to this book, but it ties Wraith Squadron as my favorite X-Wing book because of the character work and focus on the top four New Republic pilots. Plus, it's a little adorable that this is where Wedge and Iella really get together, and I am HERE for legends continuity legacy families.

#star wars #star wars books #star wars eu books #starfighters of adumar #wedge antilles #wes janson #tycho celchu #hobbie klivian #x wing #x wing fighter #x wing pilot #sci fi #science fiction

[not-poignant]

Hi Pia

Your previous post regarding burnout really resonates with me as I'm currently struggling through a mountain's worth of uni assignments.

I hopeyou're being compassionate to yourself where you can. I know you rely on your writing for income but ould cutting down to working on only 2 or 3 fics instead be a viable solution?

Because longterm I don't think that even your insanely impressive skills can hold up to that kind of pressure.

Maybe if you cut back a little you'll be able to enjoy your hobbies again and rest a little more.

I know that I'm not the only reader that wants you to take care of yourself x

Hi anon,

Firstly, good luck with all those assignments! I do not miss the grind of uni when all the assignments suddenly seem due at the same time and it's like 'oh fuck' and it just...is truly exhausting. Remember to take a break after if you can!

I am trying to be compassionate where I can. Working on expanding my capacity / juice left in the tank is actually a big priority with both therapists this year, and it's something I'm actively chipping away at.

Unfortunately cutting down fics is not really something I can do because it would personally stress me out more to put a lot of things on hiatus like that. Underline the Red is already on hiatus, and The Nascent Diplomat on my end is finished, and I'll take a few months off after that before starting the next installment.

Ideally I will be finishing out some fics that will clear my calendar a bit more over time. For example, A Stain that Won't Dissolve won't last forever, and isn't going to be replaced by anything new (Palmarosa will likely slot into that space and I'll be able to work on it more). Underline the Black will be replaced by Underline the Red, and Blue and Gold will be replaced by Underline the Silver.

Eventually, ideally, I'll be working on a smaller and smaller load until I'm at about 2-4 projects (which is how I used to work). Also quite a few of my projects only update once a month or every few months, and that helps a lot. It's just that I have too many fics where I'm on a more regular schedule (Stain, Palm, Black) and normally I only have one or two fics that are on a more regular schedule, so yeah, I am looking forward to that slowing down!

But putting something on hiatus just makes me feel more burdened and overwhelmed than knowing I'm getting closer and closer to wrapping something up. It's just how my brain works! I am a finisher, and while that's really good for not abandoning projects (which is extremely rare for me and tends to only be very short projects or PWPs which I will turn away from), it's less good when I have too many projects lmao. I've gotten better at holding back (there's three fics I'm dying to write right now, which is an Efnisien/Kadek fic that I've already started but not posted anything of, Silver, and Red).

So yeah, I will be cutting back. I've already started. The Nascent Diplomat is no longer on my schedule, which means for the next 3 months while it's still posting, I don't have to write anything for it. That's lovely because I can still share in that world with no extra labour (it's edited and everything). Likewise, Stain and Black are both in their last act/s now. That's still a lot of chapters for both, but it feels good for me to know that both will likely be finished out this year.

But we are getting there! So yeah the view is to cut down on projects, but organically (by finishing out stories and not replacing every single one with new titles, only some of them) rather than forcefully via hiatuses. I mean obviously if I get too sick I will have to go on hiatus and I've done that before, but so far it's looking like I've written enough chapters ahead (most of May is written) that I can take about 2 weeks off from writing in April, and that will help a great deal as well. :)

Anyway, take care with your assignments too! I do not miss that part of uni at all

#asks and answers #personal #pia on writing #i have actually enjoyed stories where i only update once a month #like constellations and TND #as well as something more regular like Black #and something a bit different like Blue and Gold #a big problem - which is frankly a lovely problem to have - is that i'm so *excited* to work on all these stories truly #none of them bore me or disinterest me #even the ones i'm not working on right now #i'm so enthusiastic about all of them #i just need to get better at patience which my ADHD brain finds frustrating #but i am getting there! #just getting TND finished feels lovely #like bittersweet but also lovely #and it will continue to feel that way as i shave off at the schedule #to get back to something more human #i appreciate you anon - make sure you're taking care

[thewales]

In my opinion, all the discord generated by William's statement today highlights the relevance of the monarchy and its members and the impact it can have in steering conversations towards issues that really matter, even in the face of political discomfort and conflicting opinions because they are essentially above it all.

AGREED. Ive been the one who is skeptical about relevance of RF(well yes im royal follower but lets face the truth), but after all these reactions... it seems like they still hold some powers whatever that power is

While I might hesitate to label it as outright 'power,' there's no denying that members of the monarchy, William in particular, wield far more influence than some are willing to acknowledge. This influence has been evident in things he has said, which have had the capacity to provoke widespread reactions across social media and traditional media platforms. What happened today is another example of that IMO.

A unique advantage of the monarchy is its ability for its members to express opinions on a variety of issues without being intrinsically linked to political affiliations. Despite being a constitutional monarchy, its primary focus is not politics. This distinction has given members such as William the opportunity to engage in actions that could be construed as politically sensitive.

Take, for example, his visit to Israel and Palestine in 2018. Unlike many diplomatic visits, this one was not exactly perceived as a strictly political affair. Instead, William emerged as a figure of importance, arriving with the genuine intention to facilitate dialogue and listen to both sides of the conflict. In doing so, he positioned himself not as a political actor but as a diplomatic mediator, offering a neutral platform for communication.

That visit not only symbolised the monarchy's diplomatic role but also demonstrated how a member of the royal family could bring genuine interest to help and impartiality to a complex geopolitical situation. It underlined the idea that their actions can transcend the political landscape, presenting an alternative narrative focused on dialogue, understanding and cooperation. That's what should happen now too.

So, while the monarchy or its senior members do not possess political power in the conventional sense, their ability to address sensitive issues and engage in diplomatic moves demonstrates a unique form of influence, based on neutrality, dialogue and a commitment to addressing global challenges across political divides.

But while all that sounds good in theory, the problem is that the British monarchy, especially Charles and William sometimes have trouble understanding all that. And that's why I can understand the reluctance of some people when they, particularly William, decide to express opinions on current issues that often prove to be highly polarizing or politically intricate because it can get messy.

#royal watching #brf #the prince of wales

[canmom]

i wish i had some kind of convincing theory of political change, especially on the like 'world scale'.

my country 'the UK' is implicated in what is happening in Gaza. both historically for its role in overseeing Mandatory Palestine that led to the creation of the state of Israel, and presently for our economic integration (especially arms sales) and diplomatic positioning as a geopolitical ally. for that reason, it feels like actions here ought to be able to do something to push the direction of what happens out in Palestine - more so than if I lived in another country.

turnout at London's pro-Palestine marches is broadly declining from the looks of things. from the peak around 800k a month ago, now the organisers report around 150k - still sizable but a decline of about 80%. and like, I kind of get why: we marched, the politicians held a vote which came down decisively against calling for a ceasefire, they made some mouth noises about humanitarian this and that, Suella Braverman got booted for stirring the pot too much, fucking David Cameron of all people crawled out of the woodwork to get sent over there for some reason, and meanwhile as you know there was a ceasefire for about a week (to which the UK was at best irrelevant and at worst an obstacle) and then the massacre picked right up where it left off.

newsworthy events that provoke this kind of protest response have a kind of half-life - when the news is 'more of the same', and there doesn't seem to be much avenue to do anything about it, people will gradually resign themselves to the situation. other things will come up in their life, going on apparently ineffectual marches feels like less of a priority. the government's strategy with this, like most large protests, was essentially 'they can't do anything to us, let it blow over' and it seems to be working out for them.

what may yet come about is increased membership in groups like Palestine Action who are using sacrificial tactics, mostly aiming to make Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems unable to operate in the UK through actions that intentionally end in arrest and sometimes imprisonment. they've had some success there.

still. supposing they continue to find success, and eventually Elbit fully shuts down its remaining 10 sites in the UK. would that alone meaningfully reduce the military capacity of the occupation? maybe not much, but we could hope that if similar successes were found in other countries, and it came with a broader shift towards divestment, it might become significantly less viable to operate as an aggressive ethnostate or suppress insurgencies and so on. perhaps even 'end of apartheid' style dramatic change to the structure of the state(s) in the Levant might end up being possible, eventually.

what's the timescale on that? i have no fucking idea, but it's surely at least a lot longer than the time it will take for the situation in Gaza to resolve to either a semi-permanent ceasefire, full-on annexation, or escalation into a bigger, messier war.

which brings me back round to the question of like, what can be meaningfully done from here, in the role of some bitch in the critical industry of "making videogames", to try to stop the massacre that's playing out right now? what dominoes can i push that will result in net fewer deaths from bombing and starvation?

i've ended up writing fairly often to my politician, who's (in the justifying narrative of representative democracy) supposed to be my vector for political action, with the most persuasive rhetoric I can muster. today she writes back a boilerplate response to say what she's been doing about arms sales to Israel - speaking up briefly in a debate about arms exports seemingly the most concrete thing. so far as i can tell nothing much changed as a result: lots of politicians made speeches, the government spokesperson gave a fairly predictable reply. this is pretty much what I expected, I don't really expect results from a liberal politician, but it's not a lot of effort to spend on maintaining the pressure.

obviously, if it was so easy to stop this conflict that a 31-year-old game developer in London could do it, it wouldn't still be happening. maybe there isn't an answer. at the same time like - the logic is pretty clear: genocide is up there as one of the worst possible things. the Gaza genocide certainly isn't the only one happening right now, but it is the one which my country is most actively supporting. it seems indisputable that if there is an action that would help to curtail a genocide, I am obliged to find it.

i've seen articles say that Israel is 'losing the war', which is in some senses true in that their ostensible objective is essentially impossible, diplomatic sentiment has shifted pretty hard against them around the world, dropping all those bombs is really expensive, and Hamas seem to have stayed pretty well hidden from them. this could totally end in another embarassing failure for their image of safety and military strength, which will probably make the money really sad for a while. their 'victory' - in terms of annexation or depopulation of Gaza - would still be a big mess they're not well equipped to handle, and it might be a step towards state failure.

but the bulk of palestinians in gaza are also 'losing the war' in the very concrete sense they've had their houses blown up and they're sitting in a freezing refugee camp about the size of a postage stamp, hoping the Americans get cold feet and Israel runs out of bombs before they find out if they'll die of cholera or shrapnel. 'the insurgency wins as long as they do not lose' may be true - Israel fails to achieve their objective as long as Hamas, or some inevitable successor insurgency, can fight another day and delay Israel's 'normalisation' in diplomacy - but goddamn is that a pyrrhic 'victory'. if I was a palestinian in Gaza, maybe I'd accept the logic of that tradeoff and put my faith in the only people who seem to be able to stand up to the ones bombing me, I don't fucking know. regardless it's a catastrophic (and repeated) failure of this world system that anyone is left choosing between slow annihilation or a strategic hecatomb.

so what's left to do, fucken... post through it? "what did you do to resist the gaza genocide of 2023" "oh i made some real angry posts on my tumblr blog and walked with a cardboard sign in London, England, 2200 miles away from Palestine" lol get real! that's pathetic!

basically i feel very powerless here. there's a lot of exhortation to do something about this, but I am not sure what the something that should be done is. I guess that's the reality of like... trying to go against the gradient of power, the enemy lays out the field and you do what little you can to find some fault line to exploit. but there's this persistent nagging feeling that like, there must be something I'm missing here, that this is somehow 'on me', and if I was smarter or braver - or more willing to burn my life down as a sacrifice and abandon the people who depend on me - I'd have more capacity to save peoples' lives in Palestine. that's a delusion of grandeur. but 'there is nothing I can really do that matters, I just have to witness the horror or turn away' is the easy cop-out, and I don't trust it either.

the left in this country is really weak. because it's so weak, whenever shit like this happens, it is not in a position to do fuck all about it. even recognising that problem, I also know I'm not much of a movement-builder. I'm trying to get involved in shit again - in my own capacity, not as a satellite of my ex - but my perpetually-exhausted adhd ass is not someone you want trying to run an org, it would be a disaster. but there must be some optimal niche I can fill right? some duty that is mine to fulfil in the great project of bringing about the good future? I can't seem to let go of this feeling, that I'm being derelict in my responsibility to use the tools and talents I've been given by chance, but I can't figure out what exactly that responsibility is and how to know when I've finally met it.

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Sebek, Trey: Sugar Sweet and Bitter Step

Finally 👀 Sebek interacting with the dude that reminds him of his father… This is the juicy content I’ve been waiting for 😌 (It fucking slapped btw, did NOT disappoint 🦷 ✨ I especially loved when Sebek was describing the new candies he has tried and he describes pop rocks as candies that fucking attack you asduqbdoas) ASHDBAIDAIDqwehqbyoe8y IT WAS REALLY CUTE WHEN MALLEUS, LILIA, CATER, AND VIL'S VAS WISHED SEBEK-KUN HAPPY BIRTHDAY IN THE TWST YEAR III ANNI LIVESTREAM...

A Boy in Bloom, and his Flowering Future.

“What do you do on your days off?”

"Hmph, I'm glad you asked, human!" Sebek's laughter was smug and resounding. "I spend days off training!"

"You... train to relax? That sounds like an oxymoron."

The birthday boy scoffed. "As a knight and an attendant, there is no such thing as 'relaxing'! I must remain vigilant so as to best protect and serve the young master!!"

"I get that, but... your muscles would be sore after working out so much, right? You'd need to take some time off to recover, otherwise you'd be pushing your body to the brink and risk injuring yourself," Trey calmly pointed out. "I used to train back when I played soccer. Had to cut that short when I worked myself too hard, so I wouldn't want that to happen to you."

A sound like rumbling thunder collected in Sebek's throat. "O-Of course I know something as basic as that! I know to take breaks!! Don't belittle me, human!!

"When I say 'training', I don't mean it purely in a physical capacity! If I am not able to train my body, then I train my mind! As Lilia-sama says, tactical might has changed the course in many critical battles in the history of--"

"Oooh, I get it. You mean general self-improvement." His interviewer snapped his fingers as the clues all neatly fit together in his head. "So you like to read? What sorts of things do you usually go for?"

"A variety. I frequent the Mystery Shop to browse their selection, but Diasomnia and the school archives also contain a number of older volumes.

"Lilia-sama has advised that I expand my worldview, so I have taken it upon myself to read literature from many genres and eras. 'Even picture books have merit, Sebek! You should open your heart to them!' ... so he said."

"No kidding." Trey raised his brows. It certainly sounds like something Lilia would say... though I'm not sure how serious he was about it. "Hey, I've read some books to my little brother and sister before, so I could recommend a few to you."

"Picture books from the Queendom of Roses... I've yet to read those. I dislike having to make requests of others, but... on Lilia-sama's orders, I have no other option. You will provide a list of acceptable readings to me the day after today, understood?!"

"Sure, leave it to me." Trey offered a patient smile. "I gotta say though, I didn't think you'd be concerned about being so worldly. You seem a little too set in your own ways."

Ace and Deuce described him as hard-headed. Even Riddle said Sebek has a hard time handling horses in Equestrian Club because of his attitude.

Sebek looked as though he'd be struck in the heart. He recoiled, his face crumpling with upset.

"Hnngh!! I-I've heard as much from Lilia-sama that this would be a detriment if I am to serve the young master, who will no doubt face many diplomatic issues with other countries. That is why I'm making efforts to expand my horizons by diversifying my reading materials and experiencing new things."

"Such as...?"

"I have read in some texts that a good way to learn about other cultures is to consume their cuisine. I have taken to snacking on baked goods and sweets from different regions of Twisted Wonderland to this end. Cookies, muffins, and candies that the Mystery Shop stocks.

"There are lollipops in various shapes, candy so sour it makes your mouth bleed and colors it bright blue, and little granular candies that assault the taste buds with explosions when they hit your tongue...! Hard candies flavored with apples from different farms in Harveston, chewy taffies made with salt from the Coral Sea, gummy bugs from the Afterglow Savanna that gets stuck between my teeth, candied flowers from the Queendom of Roses..."

"Has the snacking helped you learn anything new about those places or the people that live there?" Trey asked, cocking his head.

Sebek paused to think. Moments later, he, with his full chest, proudly replied, "An Octavinelle student was monopolizing all the peppermint sticks in the shop, so I saw it fit to liberate them from his grasp!!"

"... In other words, you picked a fight with him." Trey sighed. "It’s… a start. A small one, but still a start if it gets you to interact with those outside of Diasomnia. You'll just have to keep working on that—baby steps now so you can be where you want to be in the future, yeah?"

"Indeed...!!" Sebek slammed the end of his broom into the ground, the motion hard and resolute. "If I wish to stand by Malleus-sama's side, I must do all that I can to be worthy of him. To go wherever the young master is... that is my greatest dream!!"

He grinned with his teeth, displaying prominent canines. poking out from between two rows of pearly whites. It was a smile as radiant as the sun.

"Oh, that reminds me." Trey indicated his own mouth. "I hope you're remembering to properly floss and to brush your teeth well after eating all those candies. It's important to take care of your dental hygiene, especially after eating sugary snacks."

"Grrgh...!! Where do you get off on, giving me orders!?"

"I wouldn't call them orders. They were just suggestions--though I think your teeth would be happier if you followed them," Trey joked, trying to lighten the mood.

Sebek's expression creased all the same.

"That you would see fit to suggest anything of the sort to me is offensive!!" the birthday boy grumbled. "My father makes similar remarks, no matter how often I remind him that I am a grown man!"

"Ahahah... I'm sure that's just his way of showing you that he cares. It's hard for any parent to watch their kid grow up. To them, that kid will always be their baby.

"Hmph! R-Ridiculous," Sebek declared. He haughtily turned away, his cheeks tinged pink. There was hesitation, and then an uncharacteristically quiet voice that slipped out. "You... really are like him in every conceivable way. I cannot fathom humans like you sort."

"Exactly why you're trying so hard now." Trey nodded to the sky above. It was a cornflower blue morning with a healthy sprinkling of clouds. "You've been training hard, so let's see you in action."

"D-Do not presume to understand my skill! I'll show you just how powerful I am!! Faster than light, stronger than lightning... I AM HE WHO HAS SWORN TO PROTECT THE YOUNG MASTER!!"

The vow was made, his ambitions announced.

In response to his decree, the broom fizzled to life. It lifted off the ground in a single strong stroke, Sebek easily swinging on. His robes fanned out behind him, fabric flapping loudly in an errant spring breeze.

Magic crackled in the air around them, hot as sparks, bright as stars. His spells matched his energy: loud and proud.

His grip on the handle was as steady as his resolve.

His fierce gaze, focused on the future.

#Sebek Zigvolt #Trey Clover #twst #twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland imagines #twisted wonderland scenarios #Sebek birthday takeover #something no one asked for #spoilers #disney twisted wonderland #the peppermint stick thing and the Octavinelle student Sebek fought with is a reference to Dorm Uniform Floyd's vignettes

[theculturedmarxist]

As with the South African case, according to court procedure the Israeli case was introduced on Friday by their “agent”, permanently accredited to the court, Tal Becker of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He opened with the standard formula “it is an honour to appear before you again on behalf of the state of Israel”, managing to imply purely through phrasing and tone of voice that the honour lay in representing Israel, not in appearing before the judges.

Becker opened by going straight to the Holocaust, saying that nobody knew more than Israel why the Genocide Convention existed. Six million Jewish people had been killed. The Convention was not to be used to cover the normal brutality of war.

The South African case aimed at the delegitimisation of the state of Israel, he said. On Oct. 7 Hamas had committed massacre, mutilation, rape and abduction. 1,200 had been killed and 5,500 maimed. He related several hideous individual atrocity stories and played a recording he stated to be a Hamas fighter boasting on WhatsApp to his parents about committing mass murder, rape and mutilation.

The only genocide in this case was being committed against Israel. Hamas continued to attack Israel, and for the court to take provisional measures would be to deny Israel the right to self-defence.

Provisional measures should rather be taken against South Africa and its attempt by legal means to further genocide by its relationship with Hamas. Gaza was not under occupation: Israel had left it with great potential to be a political and economic success. Instead Hamas had chosen to make it a terrorist base.

Hamas was embedded in the civilian population and therefore responsible for the civilian deaths. Hamas had tunnels under schools, hospitals, mosques and U.N. facilities and tunnel entrances within them. It commandeered medical vehicles for military use.

South Africa had talked of civilian buildings destroyed, but did not tell you they had been destroyed by Hamas booby traps and Hamas missile misfires.

The casualty figures South Africa gave were from Hamas sources and not reliable. They did not say how many were fighters? How many of the children were child soldiers? The application by South Africa was ill-founded and ill-motivated. It was a libel.

This certainly was a hardline and uncompromising start. The judges appeared to be paying very close attention when he opened with the Oct. 7 self-defence argument, but very definitely some of them started to fidget and become uncomfortable when he talked of Hamas operating from ambulances and U.N. facilities. In short, he went too far and I believe he lost his audience at that point.

Next up was Professor Malcolm Shaw KC. Shaw is regarded as an authority on the procedure of international law and is editor of the standard tome on the subject. This is an interesting facet of the legal profession, where standard reference books on particular topics are regularly updated to include key extracts from recent judges, and passages added or amended to explain the impact of these judgments. Being an editor in this field provides a route to prominence for the plodding and pedantic.

I had come across Shaw in his capacity as a co-founder of the Centre for Human Rights at Essex University. I had given a couple of talks there some twenty years ago on the attacks on human rights of the “War on Terror” and my own whistleblower experience over torture and extraordinary rendition. For an alleged human rights expert, Shaw seemed extraordinarily prone to support the national security interests of the state over individual liberty.

I do not pretend I gave it a great deal of thought. I did not know at that time of Shaw’s commitment as an extreme Zionist and in particular his long term interest in suppressing the rights of the Palestinian people.

After 139 states have recognised Palestine as a state, Shaw led for Israel the legal opposition to Palestine’s membership of international institutions, including the International Criminal Court. Shaw’s rather uninspired reliance on the Montevideo Convention of 1933 is hardly a legal tour de force, and it didn’t work.

Every criminal deserves a defence, and nobody should hold it against a barrister that they defend a murderer or rapist, as it is important that guilt or innocence is tested by a court. But I think it is fair to state that defence lawyers do not in general defend those accused of murder because they agree with murder and want a murderer to go on murdering.

That however is the case here: Malcolm Shaw speaks for Israel because he actually wants Israel to be able to continue killing Palestinian women and children to improve the security of Israel, in his view.

That is the difference between this and other cases, including at the ICJ. Generally the lead lawyers would happily swap sides, if the other side had hired them first. But this is entirely different.

Here the lawyers (with the possible exception of Christopher Straker KC, an other attorney who represented Israel on Friday) believe profoundly in the case they are supporting and would never appear for the other side. That is just one more way that this is such an extraordinary case, with so much drama and such vital consequences, not least for the future of international law.

For the reason I have just explained, Shaw’s role here is not that of a simple barrister plying his trade. His attempt to extend the killing should see him viewed as a pariah by decent people everywhere, for the rest of his doubtless highly-paid existence.

Shaw opened up by saying that the South African case continually spoke of context. They talked of the 75 years of the existence of the state of Israel. Why stop there? Why not go back to the Balfour Declaration or the British Mandate over Palestine?

No, the context of these events was the massacre of Oct. 7, and Israel’s subsequent right of self-defence. He produced and read a long quote from mid-October by European Commission President Ursula von Der Leyen, stating that Israel had suffered a terrorist atrocity and had the right of self-defence.

The truth is that this is not genocide but armed conflict, which state has existed since Oct. 7, he said. That was brutal, and urban warfare always involved terrible civilian casualties, but it was not genocide.

He then turned to the question of genocide. He argued that South Africa could not bring this case and the ICJ had no jurisdiction, because there was no dispute between Israel and South Africa on which the ICJ could rule, at the time the case was filed.

South Africa had communicated its views to Israel, but Israel had given no substantial reply. Therefore a dispute did not yet exist at time of filing. A dispute must involve interaction between parties and the argument had been on one side only.

This very much interested the judges. As I noted on day one, this got them more active than anything else when Professor John Dugard addressed the same point for South Africa. As I reported:

“The judges particularly enjoyed Dugard’s points, enthusiastically rustling through documents and underlining things. Dealing with thousands of dead children was a bit difficult for them, but give them a nice jurisdictional point and they were in their element.”

They were even more excited when Shaw tackled the same point. This gave them a way out! The case could be technically invalid, and then they would neither have to upset the major Western powers nor make fools of themselves by pretending that a genocide the whole world had seen was not happening. For a while, they looked visibly relieved.

Shaw should have given up while he was ahead, but he ploughed on for an hour, with some relief when he continually muddled his notes. A senior KC with zero ability to extemporise and recover was an interesting sight, as he kept stopping and shuffling paper.

Shaw argued that the bar for judging whether South Africa had a prima facie case must be significantly higher because of the high military and political cost to Israel if the court adopted provisional measures.

It was also necessary to show genocidal intent even at this stage. Otherwise the genocide was a “car without an engine”. If any illegal actions had taken place within Israel’s carefully targeted military action, Israel’s own military courts would investigate and act on them.

Random Israeli ministers and officials making emotional statements was not important. Official policy to protect civilians would be found in the minutes of the Israeli war cabinet and national security council. Israel’s strenuous attempts to move civilians out of harm’s way was an accepted measure in international human law and should not be viewed as mass displacement.

It was South Africa which was guilty of complicity in genocide in cooperation with Hamas. South Africa’s allegations against Israel “verge on the outrageous”.

Israel’s next lawyer was a lady called Galit Raguan from the Israeli Ministry of Justice. She said the reality on the ground was that Israel had done everything possible to minimise civilian deaths and to aid humanitarian relief. Urban warfare always resulted in civilian deaths. It was Hamas who were responsible for destruction of buildings and infrastructure.

There was overwhelming evidence of Hamas’ military use of hospitals. In every single hospital in Gaza the IDF had evidence of military use by Hamas. Mass evacuation of civilians was a humanitarian and legal measure. Israel had supplied food, water and medicine into Gaza but supplies had come under Hamas fire. Hamas steals the aid for its fighters.

Next up was lawyer Omri Sender. He stated that more food trucks per day now entered Gaza than before Oct. 7. The number had increased from 70 food trucks to 109 food trucks per day. Fuel, gas and electricity were all being supplied and Israel had repaired the sewage systems.

At this stage Israel had again lost the judges. One or two were looking at this man in a highly quizzical manner. A couple had definitely fallen asleep – there are only so many lies you can absorb, I suppose. Nobody was making notes about this guff.

The judges may find a way not to condemn Israel, but could not be expected to go along with this extraordinary nonsense. Sender continued that the scope and intensity of the fighting was now decreasing as the operation entered a new phase.

Perhaps noting that nobody believed him, Sender stated that the court could not institute provisional measures but rather was obliged to accept the word of Israel on its good intentions because of the Law of the Unilateral Declarations of States.

Now I have to confess that was a bit of international law I did not know existed. But it does, specifically in relation to ICJ proceedings. On first reading, it makes a unilateral declaration of intent to the ICJ binding on the state that makes it.

I cannot see that it forces the ICJ to accept it as sufficient or to believe in its sincerity. It seems rather a reach, and I wondered if Israel was running out of things to say.

That appeared to be true, because the next speaker, Christopher Straker, now took the floor and just ran through all the same Hamas stuff yet again, only with added theatrical indignation. Straker is the lawyer I suspect would happily have appeared for either side, because he was plainly just acting anyway. And not very well.

Straker said that it was astounding this case could be brought. It was intended to stop Israel from defending itself while Israel would still be subject to Hamas attacks. Hamas has said it will continue attacks.

If you look at the operation as a whole including relief efforts, it was plain there was no genocidal intent. Israel was in incredible danger. The proposed provisional measures were out of proportion to their effect.

Can you imagine if in the Second World War, a court had ordered the Allies to stop fighting because of civilian deaths, and allowed the Axis powers to keep on killing?

The final speaker was Gilad Noam, Israel’s deputy attorney-general. He said that the bulk of the proposed provisional measures should be refused because they exposed Israel to further Hamas attack. Three more should be refused because they referred to Palestine outside Gaza.

There was no genocidal intent in Israel. Ministerial and official statements made in the heat of the moment were rather examples of the tradition of democracy and freedom of speech. Prosecutions for incitement to genocide were under consideration.

The court must not conflate genocide and self-defence. The South African case devalues genocide and encourages terrorism. The Holocaust illustrated why Israel was always under existential threat. It was Hamas who were committing genocide.

And that was it. Israel had in the end not been allowed to show its contentious atrocity video, and it felt like their presentation had become repetitive and was padded to fill the time.

It is important to realise this. Israel is hoping to win on their procedural points about existence of dispute, unilateral assurances and jurisdiction. The obvious nonsense they spoke about the damage to homes and infrastructure being caused by Hamas, trucks entering Gaza and casualty figures, was not serious. They did not expect the judges to believe any of this. The procedural points were for the court. The rest was mass propaganda for the media.

In the U.K., the BBC and Sky both ran almost all the Israeli case live, having not run any of the South African case live. I believe something similar was true in the USA, Australia and Germany too.

While the court was in session, Germany has announced it will intervene in the substantial case to support Israel. They argue explicitly that, as the world’s greatest perpetrator of genocide, they are uniquely placed to judge. It is in effect a copyright claim. They are protecting Germany’s intellectual property in the art of genocide. Perhaps they might in future license genocide, or allow Israel to continue genocide on a franchise basis.

I am sure the judges want to get out of this and they may go for the procedural points. But there is a real problem with Israel’s “no dispute” argument. If accepted, it would mean that a country committing genocide can simply not reply to a challenge, and then legal action will not be possible because no reply means “no dispute”. I hope that absurdity is obvious to the judges. But they may of course wish not to notice it…

What do I think will happen? Some sort of “compromise”. The judges will issue provisional measures different to South Africa’s request, asking Israel to continue to take measures to protect the civilian population, or some such guff. Doubtless the State Department have drafted something like this for the president of the court, the American Joan Donoghue already.

I hope I am wrong. I would hate to give up on international law. One thing I do know for certain. These two days in The Hague were absolutely crucial for deciding if there is any meaning left in notions of international law and human rights.

I still believe action by the court could cause the U.S. and U.K. to back off and provide some measure of relief. For now, let us all pray or wish, each in our way, for the children of Gaza.

Craig Murray is an author, broadcaster and human rights activist. He was British ambassador to Uzbekistan from August 2002 to October 2004 and rector of the University of Dundee from 2007 to 2010. His coverage is entirely dependent on reader support. Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.

#craig murray #the hague #international court of justice #israel #south africa #genocide #israel palestine conflict #gaza #consortium news

[waterloggedsoliloquy]

okay. here's the scene. sicely is forced along at a fancy party bc THRAWN is forced along at a fancy party for high command and political leaders in the outer rim. pryce got her own ticket bc shes the governor of lothal and her plus one is Publicity Boytoy #4, a human man whose name she will forget by the end of the evening but it is still likely enough that he'll annoy her to a high enough degree for her to want to have sex with him (i do not believe pryce is capable of non-caliginous attraction). even if she could she wouldn't want to go alongside thrawn again because his capability to infuriate and exhaust her beggars belief. and thrawn hates her with an icy seething passion. and due to the aforementioned caliginous-exclusive romance one might think this would mean pryce would be attracted to thrawn and you would be right. but it's really not worth pursuing that at all, because thrawn has the romantic capacity of one of those self-guided museum tour casettes with the anodyne voices, or maybe a picture on r/malelivingspaces where a bunch of Ayn Rand books are displayed prominently on a shelf in a clearly-inherited house. and also he annoys her with his constant questions and generally helpless demeanor in any context where he does not have complete control and authority. so going with her is out. and eli cant come because he's off in the unknown regions listening to a holodrama in Cheunh and getting happy he understands 85% of it (he is missing a decent amount of cultural context due to grammatical cases and familial-standing based honorifics and sentence structure). faro has her own ticket too because her uncle is a patron and benefactor for many Outer Rim charities and gentlemen's clubs, and he dotes on her. so she cant be thrawns plus one nor can he be hers because she's going to spend the entire time at this thinly-veiled diplomatic insider trading scam of an event having her first normal conversation in a year with family, and if thrawn goes with her he will be introduced to that family (nightmare scenario. never again). so thrawns option is his only other friend, a 16 year old he more or less kidnapped and has entered an uneasy truce with. is this pathetic? profoundly. the depths of thrawn's patheticness and overall dysfunction is some kind of ocean trench or hole in which i seem to be the only bastard blazing bravely downward.

SICELY: I don't want to go. THRAWN: It is not optional. SICELY: Why the hell not? THRAWN: You are a cultural attaché and a diplomatic representative of your people. There will be many ambassadors there. It is a learning experience. SICELY: Can you put it in writing that I hate thiS, I hate partieS, I will go kicking and Screaming, I hate you, and if you make me wear a Stupid fancy outfit I will Screech like a branded banSheeSteed?

Thrawn wordlessly opens up his datapad, types it all out, attributes the quote to Sicely, and turns it around to show them.

SICELY: Thank you. 

Sicely agrees to go to the party and even gets convinced to put on a nice outfit (given as they dislike being unable to wear anything than an officer's uniform, Faro frames it as a break from monotony and Sicely says it must be difficult being right all the time. Faro concurs). Thrawn, being only able to analyze fashion within the context of it being an artistic statement, is the kind of guy to wear white to a wedding. It takes the combined effort of nearly every woman in his bridge crew (which is most of them, Thrawn hates working with men) to convince him to not just wear his standard uniform and gives him a catalogue full of options.

Anyways. The commute to the party is mostly painless after this point and the party itself is mostly the same as usual, Sicely haunting the air by Thrawn's elbow like some sort of wraith comprised entirely out of teenage spite, Thrawn trying to hard to remember the difference between his polite eye contact face and menacing inquisitive eye contact face that he keeps missing what people say to him. there's music playing. ronan is there, being insufferable. tarkin is there, being insufferable and terrifying. if krennic is also here there will inevitably be A Scene. eventually sicely gets bored of trying to subtly help Thrawn save face when talking to people (he just called a woman's outfit "appropriate for the ocassion" and even Sicely is aware that that's ruder than when they said she looks draped in tinsel) so they wander off, like a husky whose owner dropped the leash, or a balloon halfway filled with helium and halfway filled with a suicide's ghost. everyone at this party looks garish and varying degrees of miserable to talk to, which does in part remind sicely of home, but the kind of diplomatic misery present here is an altogether different breed one could expect from highblooded children, and most of the parties sicely went to as a kid were shindigs, hootenannies, barn-burners, and halloween parties where everyone drank age-appropriate drinks which were not illegal. so one can imagine they feel a bit lonely.

and then finally they hear it: one adolescent voice ringing out above the rest. there is one other teenager at this party. sicely makes a beeline for it. it's a brown-haired human girl dressed in all white, and shes chewing out some senator with as much vitriol as can be acceptable in such a setting as this. this rather quickly scares off said senator, and sicely (holding their mocktail) steps in before someone else can command her attention. the first thing she sees is, of course, their stupid cactus antlers. the second thing she sees is the chimaera insignia on their stupid suit.

SICELY: Um. Hi-- LEIA: You're a bit young to be a Navyman terrorizing the Outer Rim, aren't you? LEIA: Or are you simply a fan of the works of the Seventh Fleet? LEIA: I don't know how you people find the gall to come here and rub elbows with senators and charity organizers outright working to undo the very damage of the atrocities you and the rest of the Navy cause.

Sicely can't help it. They grin.

LEIA: You ought to be ashamed of yourself if you think this is funny. LEIA: Surely your people are among the ones being subjugated by Tarkin's great work? SICELY: Oh, nah-- my people are off Subjugglating elSewhere. LEIA: Oh! Lovely to know there's scum anywhere you go in the galaxy. SICELY: Can you yell at me some more?

It's only when they find out that she's a princess that Sicely realizes they have one goal in life: become dashing butch knight. pull Princess Leia.

#cecil drawls #long post #YOU SEE MY VISION #SICELY VC IM SCRUFFY IM ROGUEISH IM HANDSOME DO YOU LIKE GIRLS #sicely nohell

[violettduchess]

My favorite writer taking requests! I have to ask for Carlo and kiss 8 - dying to see what you come up with!

A/N: Here you go, anon! This took some time but I hope you enjoy it! 💜

Carlo x f! Reader

Word Count: 3106

Today:

How did I get here?

You stare at yourself in the floor-length mirror, taking in the fitted, shimmering green skirt that is supposed to represent a mermaid’s tale, the filmy pale pink and yellow of the material wrapped around your midsection and chest. Your bare shoulders and upper arms have been dusted with pearlescent white powder, your hair held out of your face by small hair pins in the shape of seashells. You look every inch the siren, foreign and mystical and not at all like yourself. 

Behind you, you hear footsteps across the wooden platform, soft muttering in the language of Benitoite and you turn to see Carlo, Prince Silvio’s aide, followed by the twittering costume designer as he approaches to get a look at himself in the mirror. Gone is the solemn man in the plain clothing that skirted the border of being shabby but saved itself through quality of material. His ebony curls have been freshly washed and brushed away from his angular face, his dark blue eyes, the color of the sea at midnight, lined with black kohl. His usual fitted shirt has been replaced by a swashbuckler’s billowy tunic, wide open to reveal a surprising amount of well-muscled chest. Carlo used to work down at the docks before Prince Silvio found him, recognized the flame of intelligence that burned in those dark eyes and plucked him out of one life stained with hardship and into another one of research and service. Fitted black trousers hug shockingly well-formed legs, the calves of which are also covered by knee-high black leather boots. A sword hangs loosely about his hips, drawing far more attention to that area than it should.

He looks up from fussing with the scabbard, seeing you and he stops walking, nearly causing the costume designer to crash into him. With a few chirps she flits from here to there, making minute adjustments now that he is finally standing still, not noticing the way your gazes have locked with one another, the way his throat works as he swallows, trying to fight the sudden dryness. You have stolen his capacity to breathe, to think. How, how will he ever even remember his lines when he has to see you.....looking like that?

You turn away, hand pressed against the thunder of your heartbeat.

How did I get here? 

Yesterday:

In your role as Rhodolite diplomat, King Leon has sent you to many places. You had proven yourself during your time as Belle and he valued your judgment in many matters. He had been especially impressed with the way you had won over his brothers, each and every one of them coming to, if not exactly like you, at the very least respect you. There was no one else he would have been happier to see take on a representative role, your intelligence and kindness and charm qualities befitting an exemplary ambassador. 

You had chosen the gift for the Benitoite royals with care: a first-edition copy of a play by one of Rhodolite’s most famous writers, a tragic love story between a sailor and a mermaid who fell madly in love with one another but whose families were locked in a centuries-long feud that would ultimately lead the sailor to drown in the arms of his lover rather than be apart from her. Leon had chosen this gift as the story is set in what is now Benitoite and hoped it would please the royals.

And it had. Perhaps too much. Silvio, mercurial as he is, had decided he wanted to not just read the play, but actually watch it be performed. When he had been informed that the national thespian troupe was on tour, traveling throughout the Ruby kingdom, he had turned those sharp ocean eyes onto you.

“I’m sure the ambassador is willin’ ta do just about anythin’ to please us. Ain’t that right?”

Alarm bells began tinkling in the back of your mind but you found yourself sitting up straighter at the table, head tilting to one side as you regarded the haughty prince. A smile, much calmer than you felt, touched your lips.

“Of course Prince Silvio.”

He leaned back in his plush chair, necklaces jangling softly as he crossed his arms. Something about the expression on his face made those alarm bells begin chiming even louder.

“Then I say you do it. You can be the mermaid princess and uh....” His gaze scanned the room and landed on the man standing by the doorway, half in a shadow, quietly reading from a small, black leather-bound book. “Carlo!” The man looked up, startled. 

“Yes, your Highness?”

Silvio smiled broadly. “You will play the lovestruck sailor.” He nodded once, pleased with himself. “Arrange for costumes, music, and all that shit. I wanna see the play tomorrow.”

Carlo blinked as he looked around the room, his expression one of bewilderment. The leap from whatever he had been reading to his new reality seemed to have clogged the mechanisms of his brain as he comprehended what had just happened.

“Go on.” Silvio waved a jangly hand carelessly in your direction. “Go meet your lover.”

His gaze jumped from Silvio to you and the question he was asking himself was written plain as day on his face:

How did I get here?

Several hours later you found yourself in the library, which normally would have thrilled you to no end. Except instead of foraging for new literary treasures, you stared at the gift you had brought like it was to blame, while Carlo stared at you, looking a bit like an owl that had been awoken far too early from its slumber and wasn’t quite sure if it was night or day.

Silence filled the room, snaking its way around bookshelves and wrapping you both up in its tendrils, leaving you awkwardly stiff and unable to form words. You had introduced yourselves, fumbling over each other’s sentences, words clumsily knocking into each other, and then you had placed the book on the desk with a loud thump. 

Since then, there was  no sound.

Finally you cleared your throat. “Staring at it isn’t going to help us. It seems Prince Silvio really is expecting us to….perform this.”

Your voice cut the strings that the room’s silence had been holding him hostage with and he sank into the chair across from you, a frown on his surprisingly handsome face.

“I would try and speak to him but I fear if he knew how much neither of us wanted to do this, he would dig his heels in even more and perhaps invite outsiders to witness our….production.”

You found yourself regarding him a moment as he ran a hand through his dark curls. “You really know him well.” Silvio Ricci was not a man that let people close to him. Clearly Carlo was one of the exceptions.

A smile, ephemeral as quicksilver, touched his lips. “Si. He is truly….exceptional in many ways.”

You sensed how there was more underlying his words, an entire iceberg under that small sentiment that poked out from the ocean of his experience with Silvio. But now was not the time….you tore your gaze away from him, clearing your throat as you placed your hands on either side of the book.

“I can edit this…write out the lines of the most important scenes. That way we don’t have to worry about the entire play.”

He nodded, encouraged by your brilliant idea. “Excellent thinking, Signora.”

You glanced at him. “You can use my name.” You added a warm smile, lifting one shoulder with a shrug. “After all, we’re going to be scene partners, aren’t we?”

You didn’t expect the flustered way he ran a hand through his dark curls, a faint dusting of warmth falling across his slanted cheekbones. 

“If…if you insist.” 

Tilting your head, you searched for and caught his gaze, your warm smile still in place. “I do.”

He nodded, rising from his seat to walk over to a desk across the room, kneeling to open a drawer. That smile was fogging his brain and he needed a moment away from its radiant light. You weren’t aware of the effect you were having on him. You were suddenly far more aware of the broad expanse of his shoulders as he crouched, rifling through that drawer and the narrow taper of his waist as he rose back up to full height. Quickly you forced your attention back to the play, opening up to the list of characters, blinking against the swift barrel roll your blood was doing inside your veins. A moment later, Carlo returned, setting several sheets of blank paper and a fountain pen of marbled blue and silver next to you. 

“You can write out our lines here?”

“Yes, perfect. Thank you.” And you got to work, forcing yourself to focus on the familiar play rather than the man who was smiling so openly it made you literally ache to touch his cheek, close to that smile.

Another hour had passed. Outside the sky was readying itself for the night, painting itself in the most striking orange and pink. You were writing madly, lost in your work as you read over the famous play, picking out the most important scenes and transcribing key lines that would keep the story intact but trim away any extras. Carlo peeked over the top of his notebook, his mind distracted from nautical calculations and oceanography notes by…..you. You, lost in the play, mouthing certain lines as you copied them out diligently. And in beautiful handwriting, no less. Especially when compared to his own chicken scratch. You, so focused, trimming the play like a master butcher, carving out the heart of the story from within the many words. He understands that kind of concentration, that singular mindset as you navigate work like a skiff on the water. That was what he told himself anyway, that he was interested in watching you work and not in the way the evening light, spilling in through the library windows, blanketed you in its softness, catching highlights in your hair, the rose of your lips, the brightness of your eyes.

He didn’t know how much time had passed, only that the sound of the fountain pen dropping to the wooden table startled him, his dark sapphire eyes blinking rapidly as he brought his gaze quickly back down to the notebook he had been happy to ignore. 

“There.” 

You slumped back in your chair, shaking out your hand, a grin on your lips. You actually did it and the pride in your accomplishment hung on the curve of your smile. Standing just as suddenly as you let the pen fall, you shoved back your chair and walked around the table to set yourself down next to Carlo. “Let me show you.”

His notebook disappeared into his pocket and he leaned in to where you began explaining the play and the scenes you chose. You spoke quickly, excitedly, as if making up for all the previous silence.

“This scene is where they meet, the handsome, adventurous sailor and the innocent mermaid…..” You went on to explain their instant connection, the fascination they have with one another. But their relationship is dangerous, forbidden by their differences, and when the sailor tries to tell the mermaid they shouldn’t see each other anymore, she responds with a desperate kiss, one of the most romantic, most famous kisses in any drama throughout the lands. 

When you got to this part, he noticed the way you paused, lifting your gaze to meet his and suddenly you were both imagining the same thing: kissing the other person. 

Your gaze dropped to his lips, tracing their shape. He has such a beautiful mouth….He found himself wondering if your lips would feel as soft as they looked. The moment stretched out, the only sounds in the room the knocking of your heart against your breastbone, the audible inhale and shaky exhale of Carlo’s breath.

And then the doors to the library swung open, scattering the moment like sand in a violent breeze.

“There ya are. I’ve been lookin’ all over for you.” Silvio sauntered in, shaking his head, golden earrings swinging with the movement. “You’re still my aide, ya know, Carlo. I ain’t got all night to wait while you two practice your little show.” He stopped walking, taking in the blush spreading across your cheeks and the way Carlo had immediately shoved his chair away from yours. Blue eyes snapped from you to him like taunt sails in the wind and then a slow, wicked smile claimed the prince’s handsome face.

“Looks like I'm interrupted somethin’.”

You sprang to your feet, dipping into a quick curtsy. 

“Prince Silvio. We were just going over the edits to the play I made.”

Silvio cocked his head, moonlight-colored hair falling to one side as he continued to grin. “Yeah I saw.” He paused, considering his next words. “Well I hate to break up ya’ little rehearsal or whatever but I need my man here.”

Carlo nodded, brushing down the front of his shirt. “Of course, your Highness.” He turned to you, not meeting your gaze as he pointed to the papers on the table. “May I borrow these in preparation for tomorrow?”

“Of course,” you answered, the words coming out a touch too fast, stumbling on each other’s heels. “I remember which lines I transcribed. I can study them from the original.”

Amusement has Silvio’s eyes gleaming like coins in the sunlight. The sardonic curve of his mouth told you both how much he was looking forward to whatever happened tomorrow. He turned on his heel, jewelry jangling and snapped his fingers as he strode out of the library, but whether the motion was a signal for Carlo to hurry up or simply a sign of his glee at the situation he had forced you into was unclear.

Carlo started after him, holding the papers you painstakingly wrote carefully to his chest. Suddenly he stopped mid-step, turning to look your way one last time. Your eyes locked and then he gave you a quick bow.

“Until tomorrow.” He glanced up quickly, and then in a softer tone, added your name to the thought. The sound of it coming from his lips, rounded by that accent, sent a flare of warmth from your stomach up through your face. Every nerve in your body felt incandescent and alive. You managed to incline your head in return, hoping he didn’t notice the flush you knew was rolling across your skin.

When the library door closed behind him, you found your legs too shaky to support your weight and you sank back down into the wooden chair, drawing in several deep breaths. 

How did I get here, you wondered, hand pressed against your midsection as if calming the tornado of butterflies that had taken residence within.

And what am I going to do?

Today:

Carlo is a marvel. Never would you have expected the quiet, seemingly shy attendant to step out from behind the red velvet curtains and become the witty, bold sailor who enchants the mermaid princess. He strides across the stage, a new man, shoulders wide as if challenging the world to even try and burden them. Sometimes, as he delivers his lines, you recognize shades of Silvio in the lilt of his voice, the swagger in his movements. Carlo mirrors the Benitoite prince as he brazenly proclaims his love for you, swearing to fight the seven seas themselves if it means he is allowed to be yours. He makes it easy, so very easy, to slip into your role as the lovestruck siren, completely taken by this man, wondering if she could risk everything to be with him.

You’ve arrived at the turning point of the play, the moment when the mermaid princess has had enough of denying her feelings and makes the decision to follow her heart. How does she do this? By interrupting a passionate rant, grabbing handfuls of his shirt and yanking him towards her, stopping the flow of words with a kiss.

Carlo is pacing, his lines flying from his lips, memorized with the same perfection he uses to calculate wind rates and ship speeds. His hands, glinting with golden rings under the bright stage lighting, are as active as his mouth, punctuating his words with gestures, emphasizing his embattled state of being in love and never wanting to wonder what could have been.

And then it feels like a dream, like you really are swimming underwater as you cross the stage to where he is standing, roughly gathering the soft white cloth of his tunic in both hands. You pull him to you, leaning up to press your lips against his.

The ocean roars in your ears the moment they touch. The stage, the gathered audience of royals and nobles, the cavernous ballroom where the performance is taking place, the dazzling stage lights. All of it is swept away, like the sea raking its fingernails over the shore and pulling sand along with it. All you know now is the shape of his mouth as it fits against yours, the feel of his arms as they wrap around you and pull you tightly against the safeguard of his body. It is both electrifyingly new and astonishingly familiar, as if your body already knows something your mind doesn't. His lips part and he seeks entrance to your mouth, brazen as the wind when it plucks at a ship’s sails, snapping them to and fro. There is no resistance. You yield, softening in his arms, relinquishing your hold on his shirt to run your hands down his sides, around his body, palms pressing possessively against the small of his back. You are sinking, down, down, into the taste of his mouth, the heat of his embrace. Still waters run not only deep but hot, full of unexpected fervor and heart-stirring excitement. 

You have no idea how long you kissed, the time it takes a wave to caress the shore once, twice, fifty times. What you do know is when you finally break apart, the audience is motionless, breathless, hanging on the edge of their seats, and in Carlo’s midnight gaze you see truth, burning like the fire of a thousand stars.

In the front row, arms loosely crossed, Silvio Ricci smiles slowly. Knowingly. His instincts had been right and he practically glows with the satisfaction of it all. Benitoite will likely be seeing much more of the Rhodolite ambassador. Che bello.

Tagging: @aquagirl1978 @alixennial @alexxavicry @queengiuliettafirstlady @rhodolitesrose @ikemen-writer @bellerose-arcana @thewitchofbooks @redheadkittys @dear-mrs-otome @firestar-otomeobsessed @curious-skybunny @kpop-and-otome @writingwhimsey @mxrmaid-poet @silver-dahlia @wendolrea @otomefoxystar @nightfoxqueen @myonlyjknight @queen-dahlia @aceuuuuu @scorchieart @bubblexly

#ikemen series #ikemen prince #ikepri #ikepri carlo #ikepri silvio #silvio ricci #ikemen fanfiction #ikemen fanfic #otome fanfiction #1k first kiss celebration #violettwrites

[firstelevens]

#38 from the TS eras tour prompt list for sambucky, if you feel so inclined ♠️♥️♣️♦️

the BBC Musketeers Sambucky AU LIVES, y'all

38. clandestine meetings and longing stares

Bucky has never much been one for ballrooms. He’s only ever spent time in them in his capacity as a soldier, trotted out with the other Musketeers when the Crown wants to show off their own special regiment to visiting dignitaries. He imagines a ballroom would be stuffy enough without the cape and dress regalia that those appearances demand, and the crowds only make it worse.

He’s never liked this particular ballroom either. All those windows make for beautiful light, and they certainly show off the splendor of the gardens, but all that the sniper in him can see is a hundred thousand sightlines, few of them obscured by anything that would serve as a real obstacle.

He must have gone over his list of complaints a hundred times with Steve, and a hundred times again with Sam, but neither of them seemed to keep it in mind when they decided to pursue a suspected spy during a royal ball. It’s only the three of them, along with Torres, but in an attempt to be less conspicuous, they’ve rid themselves of their pauldrons. They still have their muskets, of course, and no shortage of knives besides, but Bucky worked hard to be able to wear the Musketeer crest on his shoulder, and it feels wrong to be without it.

Out of habit, he scans the room and finds the others again. Joaquín is dancing with a young woman whose mother is the premier source for gossip in the court, but it’s difficult to tell just who is plying the other for information at the moment. He’ll have to trust that Sam was right when he chose to bring Joaquín along.

He finds Sam next, charming the small Ottoman delegation that arrived earlier this week, undoubtedly impressing them with his command of languages. Everything about his posture is relaxed, and the diplomats around him all stand at ease, but Bucky can see the way his eyes cut to the windows and doors every so often, sweeping over the room and landing on the key players they’d identified earlier today.

Sam’s guard isn’t down, and he’s clearly taken to heart Bucky’s warnings about the windows as a vulnerability, and yet Bucky can’t help but watch him just a little bit longer. They’re soldiers and they’ve looked out for each other for years, but he’s not sure where soldiering comes into it when he finds himself glaring just a little bit in the direction of anyone who stops to admire Sam for too long.

“Make that face any longer and you’ll get stuck that way,” quips a voice from beside him, quiet but amused.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Rogers,” says Bucky, settling the same glare on his best friend. “This is just my face.”

Steve snorts. “That might work better on someone who hasn’t known you your whole life. I’m not a cadet; you can’t glower me into submission.”

“You’ll forgive me if I try anyway,” Bucky says, his voice flat. “Aren’t you supposed to be watching Her Majesty?”

He furrows his eyebrows. “No, I’m covering the Spanish delegation.”

“I know your assignment,” says Bucky. “I’m just wondering why you aren’t where you usually are when you’re told to be literally anywhere else.”

This time, it’s Steve’s turn to glare. 

Grinning, Bucky pats him on the cheek. “Make that face any longer and you’ll get stuck like that.”

Which is, of course, when those windows that Bucky hates so much get blown in by a musket shot, directly lined up with where the Queen was standing not half a moment ago. Bucky looks up just in time to see Torres push his way through the nearest door, in pursuit of the gunman with a spate of palace guards.

Steve starts to move towards where the Queen was, but Bucky catches his arm and pushes him backwards, widening his eyes in warning. “Go check the other windows and start moving people out of here,” he says. When Steve opens his mouth to argue, he softens his tone and adds, “I have her.”

It still seems to cost Steve something to walk away, but he sets his jaw and does it anyway, calling out orders to the remaining palace guards.

Bucky turns and pushes his way through the crowd that’s formed near the thrones, relieved to see Sam and a lady-in-waiting helping Queen Margaret to her feet. She seems steady, if a little bit shaken, but then the lady-in-waiting gasps, pointing at the Queen’s gown.

“Your Majesty, you’re bleeding!”

The lady-in-waiting seems hysterical, but the Queen has always been made of sterner stuff. She frowns down at her skirts, where a dark red stain mars the cream and gold fabric. 

“It’s not me,” she says, then immediately turns, wide-eyed, to Sam. “Captain Wilson! You said you were unharmed.”

Bucky turns to look at Sam again and realizes that there’s a singe through his sleeve, the white of his undershirt peeking through but stained with blood.

Before he can say anything, Sam is rushing to reassure the Queen. “It’s just a graze, Your Majesty. Hardly worth thinking about. I’m only sorry that it ruined your gown.”

“I don’t care about the gown, Captain. I care that you’ve been hurt, and in protecting me, no less,” says the Queen. Bucky’s always liked her. She turns to one of the courtiers standing around uselessly. “Fetch the physician, please. Wake him if you have to; I want the Captain’s injury tended to at once.”

If Bucky knows the Queen, she’ll want to keep apprised of how Sam’s injury is, which means she’ll be in and out of her apartments with the shooter still on the loose. “That won’t be necessary, Your Majesty,” he says. “He’ll be in very capable hands at the garrison.”

Sam shoots him a grateful look and Bucky knows he was worried about the same thing.

“Are you certain?” asks the Queen.

“My sister trained to be a seamstress before she took up nursing injured Musketeers,” says Bucky. “The only concern about her stitches is that they won’t leave a big scar for Sam to boast about.”

The Queen smiles a little bit at his words and seems placated. “Then you should escort him back to the garrison so she can see to him as soon as possible.”

“Others can do that, Your Majesty,” says Bucky. “I think the King would much rather see you safely escorted up to your apartments, if you’ll allow the guards and I to do that.”

The Queen only nods. If she’s at all fazed by Bucky’s contradiction, she doesn’t bat an eyelash, motioning for him and the guards to take up their places flanking her. When they pass Steve at the doors, he gives Bucky the slightest nod. Bucky nods back and keeps moving.

He doesn’t relax when the halls of the palace are clear, nor when a sweep of the Queen’s apartments reveals that the Musketeers who stood guard did their jobs and kept the rooms safe. He doesn’t relax once the Queen is safely ensconced inside and the guards downstairs give him word that Torres apprehended the shooter.

He doesn’t relax until he’s stabled his horse at the garrison and hurried up the steps to the Captain’s quarters, bursting through the door without bothering to knock and finding Sam seated by the fire, bare chested as Rebecca finishes dressing the wound on his arm.

Neither one of them seem fazed by Bucky’s admittedly dramatic entrance. His sister doesn’t even spare him a glance until she’s tucked away the end of the bandage, straightening up and leaving her supplies where they are.

“He cut his hand on glass, too,” she says. “I’ve already taken out the shards, but I trust you can clean and dress it.”

Bucky nods, stepping aside so his sister can slip out the door and latching it shut behind her.

Without turning to look at Bucky, Sam asks, “Should I even ask you where Steve is?”

“Considering how little you’d want to hear the answer, I think it would be best if you didn’t,” says Bucky. He crosses over to Sam’s chair, pulling up a nearby stool and moving Sam’s injured hand into his lap.

“Does he realize how dangerous this is?” asks Sam, sounding exhausted. He doesn’t even flinch as Bucky dabs at the cut with a brandy-soaked strip of muslin.

“Of course he does,” Bucky says. “When has that ever stopped him from doing anything?”

“There’s a difference between swinging at the biggest man on the battlefield and sneaking into the Queen’s apartments late at night. The first earns you a Royal commendation. The second gets you executed for treason.”

“The King’s mistresses go in and out of his chambers whenever they want,” says Bucky, just to be contrary. He knows that they’re not even comparable, as expectations go.

Sam sighs. “But she’s alright? The Queen?”

“Shaken but just fine,” says Bucky, as he begins to bandage Sam’s hand. “We did a sweep of her rooms before we took her inside.”

“Good.”

“But we did have to make a detour to bring the prince from his nursery into the Queen’s apartments.”

The curse that Sam lets out would appall both of his churchgoing parents.

“It made sense to have him somewhere safe,” says Bucky. “And I know there are guards at the doors of the nursery, but you know that no one will protect that child the way that Steve will.”

“If anyone finds out what Steve is doing–”

“They won’t.”

“But if they do–”

“Sam,” says Bucky, his voice firm, “the woman he loves almost died today. I’m not sure I can blame him for wanting to be sure that she’s alright.”

“Really?” asks Sam, raising his eyebrows. “Because you’re usually the first to do it.”

“I know,” murmurs Bucky, carefully tying off the dressing on Sam’s hand.

“I mean, I at least expected a plan to tie Steve up and put him on a ship bound for Corsica, or a list of all the ways we could get charged with treason.”

“Sorry to disappoint.”

Bucky is pulling his hand away from the dressing when Sam turns his hand over and catches Bucky’s fingers with his own. For a moment, it seems impossible to lift his gaze from where their hands are tangled together.

“Bucky.”

“I can’t, is all,” says Bucky, absently tracing a scar on Sam’s wrist with his free hand. “Not today.”

“Okay,” says Sam, turning his arm so Bucky’s fingers can trail over the rest of the scar. “Not today, then.”

#sambucky #sambucky fanfic #resetting the 'time since our last unhinged AU' clock to zero #me: i'll just write a tiny fic scrap in this au! #also me: [writes 1800 words] #sesamestreep #shoutout to Emma for making this as possibility as usual #zainab does ask meme things #taylor swift prompt fics #apologies in advance for the other very silly fic that's gonna make it into the tag today #my fic

[zodiactalks]

Who's Your BEST MATCH? (According to Your Zodiac Sign)

Do you ever wonder why some couples seem to get along instantly and have few problems, and why others argue endlessly? We are just more compatible with some people. How do you know who you are compatible with, though? Astrology can be a great tool if you're trying to figure that out.

Some sign pairings are simply matches made in Heaven. They understand each other better than anyone, and they have complementary approaches to the same goal. Here are the best matches of the Zodiac:

Aries and Libra

Aries is decisive, assertive, and not afraid to confront someone if necessary. Libra, on the other hand, is indecisive but has natural diplomatic abilities, even if it means avoiding confrontation.

Together, they are an unstoppable power couple. Libra can rely on Aries to make decisions, and Aries can learn from Libra how to consider other points of view and not burn bridges with their explosive personality.

Aries can guide Libra on a self-discovery journey and teach them the value of being true to themselves. Libra, in turn, can teach Aries how to take into account the others around them and be less self-centered and selfish. They definitely bring out the best in each other and balance out the other's faults. They make a lovely couple.

Taurus and Scorpio

They are both fiercely loyal and they are protective over those they love. They can both be possessive, so they understand where the other is coming from, even when it can get potentially toxic.

Taurus is all about retaining resources and people, whereas Scorpio is all about letting go. Taurus can teach Scorpio not to let go of something too early, and Scorpio can teach Taurus to let go when it's time.

Taurus is all about enjoying the best things in life, something Scorpio could definitely benefit from, whereas Scorpio can teach Taurus to talk more freely about taboo topics. They are just similar enough to understand where the other is coming from, and just different enough to bring about an enriching point of view for the other.

Gemini and Sagittarius

Both of these signs know how to have a good laugh. They approach the world as something that is not to be taken too seriously, and they make light of even the worst situation. They both also approach the world from a more rational side.

Gemini likes to know a little bit about many topics, whereas Sagittarius likes to know one or two topics in depth. Sagittarius can help Gemini learn the value of being thorough, whereas Gemini can help Sagittarius learn how to be more versatile.

They both mutually admire each other intellectually, and keep each other mentally stimulated. Both of these signs also have a taste for feeling free even in committed relationships.

They dislike keeping tabs on each other, and they prefer to trust each other at all times instead of needing to know what the other is doing all the time. They are just so compatible in many respects. 

Cancer and Capricorn

Cancer and Capricorn are all about building a family and a home, though they come from opposite angles. Capricorn is mostly worried about the financial wellbeing of their family and their capacity to be self-sufficient as a unit.

In short, Capricorn is about the external wellbeing of the family unit. Cancer, on the other hand, is about the internal wellbeing of the unit. They are about nourishing the family and meeting their physical and emotional needs.

Both of the goals of these signs are complementary, but the end-goal is one and the same: to protect their family and ensure their survival. Capricorn can teach Cancer how to be more grounded and not get carried away by their emotions.

Cancer, on the other hand, can teach Capricorn how not to repress their feelings and give themselves space to feel them in a healthy way. Overall, an amazing couple in which both partners can grow and become the best versions of themselves.

Leo and Aquarius

Leo likes what's conventional and mainstream, whereas Aquarius likes what's unique and underrated. Leo is all about self-expression, whereas Aquarius wants to empower the voice of the collective.

Even though they might seem like polar opposites, they are just different enough to teach each other some valuable lessons, and just similar enough to have tons of fun together. They both love being the center of attention, even if Aquarius would never admit that.

They both know how to have fun like no other Zodiac pair. Aquarius has no problem letting Leo be the center of attention if they really need that, and Leo can teach Aquarius how to express what they feel, independently of what the collective feels. They make a charismatic couple no one can get their eyes off of.

Virgo and Pisces

These signs are all about being of service to others. The only difference is that Virgo is all about the practical needs of others, whereas Pisces is more about emotional support and nourishing.

But they are both devoted to their partners and anyone else who might need their help. Virgo can teach Pisces how not to be paralyzed by their emotions, and Pisces can help Virgo to communicate in a kinder, more empathetic way.

Virgo can help Pisces come back to Earth and think in more practical terms, and Pisces can help Virgo not neglect the more emotional and spiritual side of life. But this is the only match in which both of these giving signs will receive as much as they give.

Have you ever dated your perfect match? How did it go? Do you find yourself attracted to people of the Zodiac sign that's best suited to you, or do you find some other sign more attractive?

Do you think someone's sign can tell you whether you can build a long-lasting partnership with them? Do you think that the sign we suggested is truly the best match for your sign, or would you argue in favor of some other Zodiac sign?

Tell us in the comments!

#Zodiac #Zodiac Signs #ZodiacFacts #astrology #astrology signs #Aquarius #Aries #Cancer #Capricorn #leo #libra #Sagittarius #Pisces #taurus #scorpio #Gemini #virgo

[mariacallous]

Vladimir Putin must be enjoying this moment.

Not only did the Russian president manage to snuff-troll the Munich Security Conference with news of the death of his main political rival, Alexei Navalny (“slowly murdered” by his jailers in Siberia, according to the European Union’s top diplomat Josep Borrell); he also scored a well-timed battlefield success when, over the weekend, his troops finally took the town of Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine following a tactical retreat by ammunition-starved Ukrainian troops who had defended the town since 2014.

According to one participant in Munich, the mood at the gathering of Western security and diplomatic elites — typically a chance to project unity and resolve between exclusive cocktail receptions — was grim. “There is a sense of urgency, without a sense of action,” said Jan Techau, Germany director for the Eurasia Group, a think tank. “It’s a very strange state of affairs.”

Indeed, two years after Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the situation has never looked more perilous for Kyiv — and for its neighbors along Russia’s western frontier — since the dark days of February 2022, when U.S. President Joe Biden offered his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a one-way ticket out of Ukraine (declined), and much of the world assumed (wrongly) that Russia would overrun the country. 

U.S. Republicans, following orders from ex-President Donald Trump, are blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine, subjecting troops to “ammo starvation” with immediate, deleterious effects on the battlefield. After taking Bakhmut and Avdiivka, Russian troops are now trying to press their advantage in the directions of Marinka, Robotyne and Kreminna, according to battlefield observers. European leaders, despite having become Ukraine’s chief material backers, are failing to fill the gap in military supplies left by the U.S. and, thanks to France, insisting on “Buy European” provisions despite a lack of manufacturing capacity and refusing to shop outside the bloc for shells.

Meanwhile Putin, who’s still very much in power despite efforts to sanction his regime into submission, is ramping up his campaign of intimidation against the West. In his interview with ex-Fox News host Tucker Carlson, the Russian leader mentioned Poland more than a dozen times, placing the NATO member squarely within his vision for Grand Russia, and his deputy prime minister has started to make threatening noises toward the Norwegian leadership of the island of Svalbard, in the Arctic Ocean, of all places.

With a deepening sense of gloom and resignation, leaders in countries most exposed to Russia’s flank are preparing for scenarios that would have been laughed off, in Berlin and Washington, as the fever dreams of Cold War nostalgics just 25 months ago. A top Swedish defense official told his countrymen in January to “prepare mentally” for war, and the defense ministers of Denmark and Estonia warned earlier this month that Russia was likely to start testing NATO’s Article 5 commitment to collective security within the next five years — i.e. attack the world’s most powerful military alliance just for a chance to “find out.”

It’s a parabolic slide down from the burst of “can-doism” that delivered weapons, sanctions and Germany’s “Zeitenwende” (epochal shift) during the first months of the war. A NATO official speaking to POLITICO said the prevailing view within the alliance is that Ukraine is “not about to collapse” and that the “gloom is overdone.” Some battlefield observers aren’t so sure. “What we’re hearing from the front is increasingly worrying,” a senior European government official said in January. “The risk of a breakthrough [by the Russians] is real. We’re not taking it seriously enough.”

It may be too early to say the West will lose the war in Ukraine — but it’s becoming increasingly clear that it could. As Kyiv and its allies contemplate a gruesome menu of possibilities for the coming year — including an all-fronts push by Russia’s allies, Iran and China, to trigger World War III — it’s worthwhile to pause for a moment and ask: How did we get here? How did the West, with its aircraft carriers and combined economic footprint approaching €60 trillion (dwarfing China, Iran and Russia combined) cede the initiative to a shrinking, post-Soviet country with the GDP of Spain, and end up in a defensive crouch flinching at the next affront from Putin? And if repelling Putin’s invasion of Ukraine isn’t the West’s real objective — what is?

Drip-drip deterrence

According to diplomats, security officials and experts on both sides of the Atlantic who spoke to POLITICO for this article, the answer to the first question lies partly in the fact that the West’s response to Russia has been, at least in part, dictated by fear of nuclear confrontation rather than a proactive strategy to help Ukraine repel its invaders.

“It all started in the beginning of the war when [German Chancellor Olaf] Scholz and the [U.S. President Joe] Biden administration agreed on this gradual approach towards arming Ukraine and sanctioning Russia,” said one senior EU diplomat on condition of anonymity. “Some governments were arguing, ‘We need to use the full force of our dissuasive capacity against Russia. But the argument we heard in return was, ‘No, we don’t want to.’”

“There was fear in Biden’s administration and Scholz’s entourage about the possibility of a nuclear confrontation,” the diplomat continued. “This fear was very strong in the beginning. It shaped the world’s response.”

According to Techau and Edward Hunter Christie, a senior research fellow at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, the likelihood that the Russian leader formulated some sort of nuclear threat directly to both Biden and Scholz early on in the conflict, scaring the bejesus out of them, is high. “We know that Putin told [former British Prime Minister] Boris Johnson that he could strike his country within five minutes,” said Hunter Christie. “If he did that to Johnson, it’s perfectly possible that he did the same thing to Biden.” Techau added: “There has been fairly well-informed speculation about a direct [nuclear] threat to Scholz, warning him that such a strike could happen.”

Public discussion of a Russian nuclear strike died down after the first few months of the war, replaced by conventional wisdom that Putin would gain little from a first-use strike. But there is evidence to suggest that, far from fading as a consideration for Biden, Scholz and their aides, fear has, in fact, shaped every aspect of their approach to Ukraine, particularly as regards deliveries of weapon systems. 

“There is an obvious pattern here,” said Hunter Christie. “We saw it with tanks. We saw it with aircraft. We saw it with caveats on how the HIMARS [a rocket artillery system] could be used. There is an obsessive attention to detail, to caveats on how these weapons can be used, even though some of the considerations are militarily absurd. What this obsession is covering up for is a fear of triggering some escalatory response. That’s understandable — nobody wants nuclear war — but that’s what it is.”

A case in point: the topsy-turvy debate, starting in late 2022, about the danger of sending Western-made tanks, namely the German Leopard II and the American Abrams tank, to Ukraine. In October of that year, Wolfgang Schmidt, one of Scholz’s closest advisers and a fellow traveler dating back to his time as mayor of Hamburg, came out with a bewildering array of reasons not to send the tanks, including that a) Ukraine couldn’t possibly maintain them and b) that the Iron Cross painted on them would somehow be used to suggest Germany had joined the war, or something. 

As it turned out, Berlin or Kyiv discovered the existence of paint, fears were overcome, and the tanks were delivered. But a pattern had been established whereby the West agonizingly debates the wisdom of sending a weapons system for months, until some trigger pushes Scholz and Biden over the line. 

More than a year later, Berlin and Washington are still following the same playbook, except now the debate centers on long-range missiles that would help Ukraine disrupt Russian supply lines, namely the U.S.-made ATACMS and German Taurus cruise missiles and the possibility of using Russia’s frozen assets — some €300 billion is held in Western countries — to help Ukraine. Until Navalny supposedly died while taking a walk in his Siberian prison, Scholz was pushing back on sending Taurus missiles which, according to German officials, shoot too far and too precisely and therefore raised the risk of direct attacks on Russian soil that could, in turn, prompt retaliation from Moscow against Germany. 

Navalny’s untimely death — he was 47, and healthy-looking — seems to have changed the calculus. Media in Germany and the U.S. are now reporting that Biden and Scholz are getting ready to hand over Taurus and ATACMS missiles to Ukraine. Similar debates are under way regarding the use of Russian frozen assets to help Ukraine — currently held up due to opposition from Germany and Belgium, among other EU countries — and on purchasing ammunition for Ukraine from outside the bloc, opposed by France, Greece and Cyprus.

In each case, complex arguments are set up to establish the danger, complexity or impossibility of a particular option, only to be swept away and forgotten when a fresh provocation from Russia “justifies” the additional step. “This has been the pattern since day one,” said a second EU diplomat. “It’s no, then no but, and then yes once the pressure has become too great. Not much has changed.”

“Some people live under the illusion that limited support for Ukraine is enough to keep Russia at bay and that the situation doesn’t pose any real danger to the EU,” said Virginijus Sinkevičius, a European commissioner from Lithuania. “But I think this is wrong absolutely. The war itself, both as a humanitarian disaster and a security problem, is highly problematic for the EU.”

Not so dynamic duo

Beyond fear, diplomats and experts pointed to the dynamic between Scholz and Biden as a driving force behind the West’s overriding strategy of incrementalism and escalation management, rather than a focus on strategic outcomes, in dealing with Ukraine. Despite a 16-year age difference, both men came of age politically during the Cold War and its widespread fears of nuclear armageddon. Both are deeply wedded to the U.S.-led international order and NATO protections for Europe. Both are men of the left who are instinctively suspicious of armed intervention and, temperamentally speaking, risk-averse and uncomfortable with geopolitical gamesmanship, experts and diplomats argued.

“Biden, we know, has always been ideologically opposed to the idea of intervention and war — see his chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan,” said the first diplomat. “In this case, he is doing everything possible not to have a confrontation with Russia. America used to be strong on strategic ambiguity. But Biden has gone out of his way to telegraph moves in advance throughout this conflict. In this sense, he has found commonality with Chancellor Scholz, who is also cautious by nature.”

A former far-left activist who traveled to Moscow in his youth and rose through the ranks of a German Social Democratic Party known for its historic sympathy toward Russia, Scholz wasn’t naturally configured to be a Russia hawk. “He has come a huge distance, but nobody knows to what extent that legacy [of deference toward Russia] is still with him.”

Experts also pointed to the key role of advisers, namely U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan and Scholz’s advisers Schmidt and Jens Plötner, a foreign policy adviser, in shaping their bosses’ approach. Diplomats and experts consulted for this article described Sullivan as being “highly intelligent,” “not deeply experienced on national security,” “ultimately career-driven” and “a bit short on emotional intelligence.” Schmidt gets “inseparable from Scholz,” “very cautious,” “basically terrified of Russia,” “not as big a foreign policy expert as he thinks he is.” Plötner, in turn, is described as “a super close confidante,” “Russia-friendly,” “unconvinced by the narrative that an attack on Ukraine is an attack on all of us.”

“Together these two [Sullivan and Schmidt] engineered the idea that Russia would eventually get ground down and be discouraged,” said Hunter Christie. “That may have avoided nuclear war, but it has trapped us between two suboptimal outcomes: a bigger war with Russia or the collapse of Ukraine, which would be a shock and a humiliation and a demonstration of Western weakness.”

The role of other leaders in shaping Western policy is not to be under-estimated. Ukrainian sources tend to identify the United Kingdom, under both ex-Prime Minister Boris Johnson and current PM Rishi Sunak, as a staunch ally that helped to break Western reticence on delivering certain weapons. They credit acting Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte with having broken a taboo on the delivery of Western fighter jets, as the Netherlands is currently preparing to deliver 24 F-16s to Ukraine at some point later this year, according to the Dutch Defense Ministry. Nordic, Baltic, Central and Eastern European states, namely Poland, win high marks from Ukrainian officials for the depth of their commitment to Ukraine’s victory — exemplified by Denmark’s recent decision to send all of its artillery to Kyiv.

French President Emmanuel Macron, who recently signed a defense agreement with Ukraine, comes in for more mixed reviews. While he is praised for having abandoned his insistence on dialogue with Putin and sending long-range SCALP missiles, his current insistence on “Buy European” has opened him to charges of leading a “cynical” policy more focused on rebuilding Europe’s defense industry than on helping Ukraine in the battlefield.

Yet in the broadest sense, interviewees agreed it was Scholz and Biden and their aides who set the overall pace. Their caution, incrementalism and fear of nuclear escalation has defined a Western strategy primarily focused on defensive measures, escalation management and avoidance of nuclear confrontation, with Ukraine’s battlefield success against Russia being a secondary consideration. Except that not everyone agrees that this amounts to a “strategy.” 

“There is no strategy,” said a third European diplomat. “Things are just happening. Later on, it’s easy to say there was a strategy, this was all part of a plan. But that has never been the case.” A fourth diplomat concurred. “There are slogans — ‘As long as it takes,’ ‘Russia cannot win,’ this kind of thing. But what does any of this really mean? They are things that people say. What matters is what they do.”

‘The long term’

Having squandered an opportunity to equip Ukraine’s forces with air power during the early months of 2023 — a key factor in the failure of a much-touted counteroffensive — Western leaders now see their hands increasingly tied by politics: The U.S. presidential election and Donald Trump on one side; the European Parliament election and the rise of right-wing forces led by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on the other. Critics warn that the window of opportunity for the West to help Ukraine turn the tide is, if not already closed, closing.

The anti-Ukraine MAGA caucus led by Trump, with U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson as chief whip and Republican Senator J. D. Vance as its top ambassador (who couldn’t find time to meet with Zelenskyy while in Munich), looks unlikely to greenlight the next package of Ukraine funding anytime soon. Europe’s right-wing forces  — from Marine Le Pen’s National Rally party in France to Italy’s Matteo Salvini to Dutch populist Geert Wilders and Hungary’s Orbán  — are expected to bolster their influence after the election in June, with further sanctions and aid packages for Ukraine a possible casualty.

Yet there is still time and the basket of options is far from empty. As the reports on ATACMS and Taurus suggest, Western leaders are still able to deliver game-changing weapons to Ukraine if the incentive is strong enough (in this case, officials say deliveries could be justified by sending Putin a “Navalny signal” following the opposition leader’s death). But the deliveries aren’t a done deal, and other possibilities — including confiscating Russian assets, taxing Western companies that continue to operate in Russia, or stepping up sanctions against Putin’s regime — remain on the table, visible to all, yet undeployed. Even after Navalny’s killing, there has been no “Mario Draghi moment” signaling resolve to do “whatever it takes” to help Ukraine prevail, added Techau.

“We see that the sanctions we have agreed — [on Feb. 21] we adopted another round — don’t bite enough,” added Sinkevičius. “So we need to fix our approach, globally.”

The restraint suggests that, behind the bold speeches on helping Ukraine “as long as it takes,” another unspoken agenda may well be dictating Western actions. When asked to describe the optimal outcome for Ukraine in the coming year, several European diplomats talked about a “stabilization” of the conflict. Pressed on what this would entail, the diplomats said it would mean nudging Kyiv to open negotiations with Putin to freeze the conflict and lock in current territorial gains, in exchange for Western “security guarantees” (such as those recently signed with France, the Netherlands and the U.K.) and a path to membership of the EU. 

Acting Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who’s seen as a likely pick to become the next secretary-general of NATO, hinted at this “day after” vision during remarks at the Munich Security Conference. While saying that only Kyiv can trigger peace negotiations with Moscow, he added: “But when that happens, we will also have to sit down with the US, within NATO, [and] collectively with the Russians to talk about future security arrangements between us and the Russians.”

Diplomats acknowledge that such negotiations have failed in the past, and might buy Putin time to prepare for his next offensive. Yet the alternative — a surge in Western financial and military aid during 2024 that would let Ukraine deliver a decisive punch against the Russian invader — is greeted with even greater skepticism in European embassies.

Another, unspoken aspect of the Western approach is that some factions hope to return to business as usual with Russia soon after a hypothetical freezing of the war. This might explain the profound reticence, namely in Germany, to confiscate Russia’s frozen assets and face the risk that Moscow could hit back by repossessing the hundreds of billions of euros worth of assets still held by European firms in Russia. It also chimes with a report in Germany’s Welt newspaper (like POLITICO, a member of Axel Springer) asserting that Scholz opposed naming European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen as NATO’s next secretary-general because she is “too critical toward Moscow, which could become a disadvantage in the long term.”

In a speech at the Munich conference, Scholz gave a hint of how the West is quietly redefining its war aims in Ukraine. Rather than say “Ukraine will win,” or “Russia must leave Ukraine,” the German Chancellor argued that Putin should not be allowed to dictate the terms of peace in Ukraine. “There will be no dictated peace. Ukraine will not accept this, and neither will we,” Reuters quoted Scholz as having said. 

“This is certainly softer than ‘Ukraine cannot lose,’” said Techau. “And essentially [it] means to cement the status quo.”

The West hasn’t given up on Ukraine. But its overriding focus on risk management reveals a desire to wind down the conflict and make a deal with Putin, if possible sooner rather than later. The question looming over the conflict is whether that approach will stave off disaster — or invite something worse to come.

[lavampira]

🎤

i'm passing you the mic: do you have any cute or angsty AU thoughts spinning around for any of your ships? i'm not usually an enjoyer of AUs but sometimes the right one just hits!!

open mic monday

need my blushy uwukitty emoji

I’m not normally one for my own AUs either but I did recently fall down a What If rabbithole thinking about the concept of minfilia not getting yoinked by hydaelyn, and where that would lead for d’alia’s relationship with her, especially as d’alia changes in a lot of ways after the banquet and becomes the sort of person willing to be a dark knight. but I realized that would majorly break the plot particularly with shadowbringers and I don’t have the capacity to work a solution around it asdfgh

SO INSTEAD

I started toying with the concept of a setting removed from the actual game, maybe more like a general fantasy AU, where minfilia is some type of diplomat for an organization like the scions and d’alia as a knight (who can use magic still alongside her sword skills) turning a bit jaded who takes a contract with the diplomatic group, maybe a bit of a bodyguard type scenario, fancy meetings and masquerades, and really an excuse for wlw knight protector vibes with a twist of Not Princess, and still poke at their shifting relationship as outlying factors change them too <:

and now I’m running away ty beloved <3

#i’ve been in a weird brainspace sharing about alia lately but i’m trying to be brave asdfgh #asked and answered #coldshrugs #shadowbringers spoilers #open mic monday