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#bystander revolution
andicareaboutyou · 9 months
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Bystander Revolution: Salma Hayek | Own Your Mistakes
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dostoyevsky-official · 7 months
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mask off 💀
it turns out i'm a little soft hippy centrist shitlib after all: i don't like it when civilians get killed. i am beholden to the idea that life is sacred, holy, and inviolable, that civilians are innocent no matter how much you do not like them. i am against cruelty—i have always been against it— and i believe that informs my understanding of the past and present: i am against the apartheid state and the blockade, i am against the ongoing carpet bombing of gaza. i will not cheer with you when dead bodies get dragged and spat on in the street, i do not think it is a moment of liberation when children get kidnapped and beaten. because i am against cruelty i do not celebrate shooting up 250 stupid concert goers. because of the principles i hold i don't like it when israel murders children, as it has done so in the last 48 hours, with the world's support. i do not support a government that kills over 200 innocents with impunity in retaliation. i do not understand what massacres justify which other massacres. it is barbaric to deny clean water and basic medicine to children; it is barbaric to shoot them, it is not a revolution. i don't like the kahanists and their state that led to this and i don't like hamas. i will not support the state of israel—i never have—and the impending invasion of gaza, instigated by two groups of fascist religious fundamentalists. i think cheering any part of this tragedy atrocious. but now i've gone and pulled a both-sides!
i want you to look at what's happening as a real act and not a media event where you pick the side that's convenient for your team. set aside the outrage, look at the people dying, and think of each life, that holds so much and is a miracle in itself. try to understand the immense tragedy of what it means for that to be cut short. do you not value life? does your value of life inform your politics? do you not support palestinians because you value life?
i’ve consistently posted about how opposed i am to violence targeting bystanders, the terror and bloodshed it achieves and nothing else. the history of the twentieth century, still unfolding around us, tells me that much. if you are celebrating, you are either an idiot, consumed by online politics, or you have lost some sense of humanity; look around—look carefully—and try to preserve it instead
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kleftiko · 8 months
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❦ BEFORE YOUR EYES
cw: this is fluff, canon typical violence alluded to, fem!reader, they have a child in the end
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it was 845, just before the first wall fell. you were 16 and scrambling outside upon hearing the noise in trost. the scout regiment were off on another expedition and you wanted to catch a glimpse.
as soon as your gaze found him, you smiled. his bored eyes only faced forward, ignoring the mumbling and grumbling of bystanders as he rode his horse. he never showed an emotion other than annoyance or indifference, and for some reason you were swooned by it.
as he passed, you swore you saw your life with him flash before your eyes—the tears, the laughs, the love.
just as he was about to lose your focus, you cupped your hands around your mouth.
“captain levi!” everyone looked at you, his apathetic glare locking onto you as you felt your heart skip a beat.
“marry me, please!” you shouted.
for a second, nothing moved. for a fraction of a moment, his eyes must have widened the tiniest bit in surprise, until attention moved to the person beside him cackling their heart out from your outburst. with that, captain levi flicked their head and turned his back to you as he continued along.
all of a sudden, it’s a few years later and your first day with the survey corps. commander hange was learning the names of the handful of rookies that joined and came up to you.
“and you are?” they asked.
you proudly salut and say, “y/n, commander! i’m the future mrs. ackerman!”
after a blink, they break out into hysterical laughter that takes you back a few years. they grip onto your shoulders for support but nonetheless take you to captain levi, introducing you to him as his future wife.
with a rapidly beating heart, you hope that you make a good impression, you’re now a 19-year-old adult, no longer that child he first saw. you were prepared to win him over now.
but captain levi doesn’t give you a second look. his gaze lifted from paperwork, no change in his expression, before it fell back to the desk and he gave you a monotone, “good luck, cadet.”
you were 22 when you first saw the ocean. shoes off, the salty water dehydrated your toes, but you couldn’t bring yourself to move from the foreign feeling. the younger ones splashed around, picking up weird looking things with awe. you felt a tear roll down your cheek as you stared at the horizon, the idea that there was a whole world out there that you had no idea about too much to comprehend.
you don’t know what it was that made you look, but you turned your head to your captain.
he hadn’t changed from the man you saw on that horse years ago. he was still levi. and he was staring back at you, same look you had always given him across his features.
at 25, you don’t know how he’s done it. all the fighting and the loss he’s suffered, year after year. it’s no wonder he doesn’t sleep at night. you’re around the age he was when you first asked him to marry you, when you looked up to him as a hero. now, he laid beside you in bed, sheets between your legs as he held your fingers and brought your hand up to his lips for a soft kiss in hope of coaxing you to sleep.
the next day, you would go to marley, chasing eren and his revolution.
your head was on the pillow as you looked up at levi who sat reading the paper.
his eyes were tired, but he was a good soldier. this was what he did, and the thought of what happens when this is all over crossed your mind.
“marry me.” you whispered.
he looked down at you with the same face he had the day at the sea.
holding eye contact, he lifts your hand once more and places a kiss on it.
“of course.” his voice was deep.
now you wash dishes. a soft hum coming from your lips as you listen to your husband and daughter at the kitchen table.
his scarred face never scared her, and he always answered all of her non-judgmental questions.
you sneak a peek. she’s sitting in his lap, her hands playing his his own larger one, not concerned with the fact that he was missing a few fingers.
“what happened, daddy?” she asks, holding her arm beside her dad’s, probably wondering why she had more fingers than him.
your five-year-old had never known war and, hopefully, would never have to. the idea that one day she would hear of the horrors her parents went through made you tear up.
“he didn’t go to sleep when he was supposed to, so a monster ate his fingers.” you tease and your daughter gasps.
levi grunts. “don’t tell her shit like that.”
you raise your eyebrow at him. “don’t swear in front of our daughter.”
he smiles. he always does when he hears ‘our daughter’ or ‘our home’. he now has soft crows feet around his eyes, and his dark hair has a couple sprinkles of grey here and there, but he’s still your levi.
you would ask him to marry you all over again.
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urlonelystarrr · 9 months
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ultraviolence | part two
rk800 'connor' x reader x rk900 'nines'
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GENRE → angst, romance & smut
SYNOPSIS → your feelings for connor grew as the android revolution went on, though a new partner makes you question your feelings.
TAGS/WARNINGS → 18+ descriptions of corpses, blood, violence, homicide, child abuse/neglect, creampie, dirty talking, overstimulation, choking, oral(male & female giving/receiving)
CHAPTERS → PART ONE / PART TWO
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after working in the DPD for so long, you never could get used to the sound of your alarm blaring at 5:00 am. by the time you arrived at your desk, your limbs were already aching for the warmth and comfort of your bed - the type of tiredness that could only be satiated by a full night's rest (which you didn't get most nights).
to add onto the poor sleep schedule you had, the past few weeks had been filled with an unnecessary amount of paper work, and most of your time was spent sitting in front of the terminal at your desk. in order to pass the time, you'd make frequent stops to connor's desk, only to be yelled at by hank to get back to work. or you would attempt at small talk with nines, to which he always responded with narrowed eyes and a stern look. it was clear he wasn't fond of small talk so early in the morning.
this morning was no different than the last, as you sat at your desk, bored out of your mind. the day had just begun, and the steaming cup of coffee on your desk still wasn't able to replace the extra hours of sleep that you had missed. as if a silent prayer had been answered, you swiveled your chair around to see connor's lovely face, greeting you with a good morning. "good morning detective, you seem to be in a good mood today," he gave a small smile. "all thanks to you," you smile, not noticing the grey eyes across your desk watching the two of you. connor stayed silent for a moment as his LED pulsed amber, and you followed his line of vision to see nines doing the same. "i've sent the case file to rk900, i've just got a report of a double homicide and a suicide," he briefed. "what an amazing way to start my morning," you replied, sarcasm laced in your tone.
"lieutenant anderson is currently supervising an academy student, and since i'm not authorized to investigate crime scenes on my own, i will accompany you today." connor said, hands clasped behind his back as he looked down at you. nines stood from his seat, making his way over to join connor. you took a sip of your coffee before standing up to join the pair, grabbing your keys and heading to the lot.
"what do we know about the homicide?" you asked nobody in particular. unfortunately you had to sit in the backseat of your own car, as nines insisted on driving and connor took the passenger seat before you could. "a mother had murdered her own two children before taking her life. an hk200 reported that he was a witness and is currently at the station giving a written statement," connor turned around to look at you, before turning back around to face the road. "and this happened how long ago?" you asked.
"around 20 minutes ago," nines suddenly spoke, despite being quiet the entire ride. "did the android mention that she had a husband?" nines looked in the rearview mirror to make eye contact with you before replying, "no, however legal documents show that she is married." he pulled into a vacant area near the house crowded by bystanders, police and news reporters. the three of you passed the digitalized 'POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS' tapes, ignoring people's questions about what had happened. as you entered the home, the three of you split up. as stated in the report, the crime took place in three different areas; the kitchen, the bathroom upstairs, and the last in the children's shared bedroom.
you headed over to the kitchen, where the wife laid motionless at the table, a gunshot wound lodged in the back of her head. part of her brain matter was exposed, and the surrounding area had been decorated in brains and blood. it was a gruesome sight to say the least, but you suspected that it was a little odd position for a suicide. connor stood next to you, moving in front of the corpse and analyzing her body. connor's on sight forensic analysis proved to be quite effective as it saved a lot time, compared to waiting for forensic reports after you had analyzed the scene. his brow furrowed slightly, as he looked at you (not without sampling the blood of course). the weapon - a glock G19, was located next to her hand, along with a glass of wine.
"that's unusual. the exit wound isn't on the back of the head, instead it's in the front. it's a strange way to shoot yourself," connor examined, turning to you for your opinion. "i don't think this was a suicide. i think it might've been a homicide, but we can't say for sure," you replied to his analysis, before leaving to join nines upstairs. connor watched your retreating figure, before reconstructing a possible scenario.
as you walked up the creaking stairs, you took notice of the door that was slightly ajar in the distance. as you neared it, you realized it was the bathroom. you pushed the door open with a foot, immediately noticing the bloodied corpse of one of the children in the bathtub. the water had been drained, leaving the body in a pool of her own blood. the victim suffered three gunshot wounds, one in her chest, one in her right side and the last one in her forehead.
it was sickening to see, but the more you looked the more things you found. the gunshot wounds weren't the only injuries she had, as there were welts scattered across her legs, and faint burn marks on her wrist. the welts could have come from a belt. the sight immediately reminded you of the hk400, the first case you ever worked on involving an android. a bubble of disgust and guilt boiled in the deep pits of your stomach, but you swallowed it and stood up, only to be startled by connor's unannounced appearance. "jesus, you scared me!" you sighed. "i didn't intend to startle you, detective," connor said reassuringly, with his hand on the small of your back. you ignored the comforting feeling of his hand on your back, and moved to the final room, leaving connor to analyze the second corpse.
nines crouched next to the young boy, who didn't look older than the age of eight. he took a sample of his blood, analyzing his DNA like his predecessor. like his sister, he was shot. but forensic analysis suggested he was strangled before. judging by the purplish hue on his neck, it was evident that he'd been choked. "i reconstructed a possible scenario. it seems that the perpetrator came in through the door, and then proceeded to choke the victim before shooting him four times," nines explained, looking at you as you stared at the bloodied corpse on the floor. the carpet had been stained red, along with a stick figure drawing of the boy and his family. a few crayons surrounding the picture had suffered the same fate as the drawing - stained red and broken.
you noticed that he suffered the same marks, which were obvious indicators of abuse. nines and connor had seen it too, the bruises, the burn marks and the welts. "I think the mother might have been abusing her children. maybe she felt guilty after doing this and decided to take her life," your brows furrowed as you examined the room further, noticing the lack of clothes and toys.
"It's likely, as her fingerprints match the ones on the gun." nines said. connor chimed in, adding to nines' analysis. "however, the exit wound on her forehead indicates that she couldn't have shot herself. if she killed her two children, then who killed her?" your brows only furrowed in confusion as you tried to piece together what had happened. judging from their analysis, she couldn't have ended her life. if the hk200 was a witness, then he was lying, because the mothers death wasn't adding up. the husband was also nowhere to be seen, and the gun she used was registered in his name. there was only one way to make sense of this mess, as it had spiraled into something beyond what the files insinuated.
"hello, my name is detective l/n. what's your name, honey?" connor and nines watched in the observation room as you questioned the hk200. "my name is michael," he replied, fiddling with his hands in his lap. connor's brow arched slightly from the pet name, an unknown feeling erupting in him that could only be described as jealousy. "thank you for being cooperative, i understand you've already given a written statement but we'd like to ask you a few questions." you opened the case file, revealing the images taken of the bodies. he avoided looking at the pictures, and looked at you or around the room. the room was designed to be plain and bland, in order to keep the person under questioning focused and not distracted. this allows for them to rely on the detective for any type of distraction.
"what did you do today, michael?" you started off with easy questions to gain rapport, as answering easier questions would put him at ease and he would be more likely to give you more information. you could always scare them into a confession, but that would only escalate the situation and end in a possible destruction. "i did my usual list of chores," he replied. you nodded, "does this include cooking meals?"
"yes," he confirmed. "can you tell me what their mother does? does she help out, or does she rely on you for taking care of the children?" you noticed as he began to shift in his seat at the mention of her. "she left taking care of the children to me, and she'd spend most days drinking." you nodded, "did you have a good relationship with the children?" he took a little longer to respond, his eyes glossy with a type of pain you'd seen before. a look you wished to never see again. but then again this wasn't about you. "yeah, we did a lot together. drawing, playing games, normal things." he sounded hurt, like he was genuinely affected. you felt for him, reaching across the table to offer a comforting hand to him. he put his hand on top of yours, relaxing a little as he calmed down from your touch.
"was she married?" you had asked, despite knowing the answer. it was a simple test to see if he was lying or not. "yes. her husband would come home late and leave early in the morning, so she wouldn't spend much time with him," he explained. upon hearing this, connor did a quick search and was able to find his workplace. it was possible that the husband had left before the crime happened, and would come home to horrible news. "what time does he leave for work?" you asked, and the android replied rather quickly. "he leaves at 7:00am." by the time you arrived on scene, it had been 9:27am, and if it happened around twenty minutes before you arrived, then the husband would have been long gone, meaning the crime would take place around 9:07am.
you pushed a few images of the injuries on the children, waiting for him to look at them. "since you took care of the children, you probably have noticed these marks on them. do you know who caused them?" he visibly stiffened, eyes trained on the images of the marks and bruises. he then stared at his lap, remaining silent. but the look of guilt on his face was becoming more apparent. "i know you cared about those kids. you looked after them everyday. i can see the pain in your face." his brows started to furrow, before he slammed his fists on the table, startling you slightly. nines and connor were quickly alerted by this behavior, bodies tense and ready for anything to happen. "you don't know anything!" he yelled. "i don't, so tell me the truth," you pressed. he stayed silent again, before admitting it.
"it was the mother. she did it," he confessed. "she'd beat them almost every night. one time i tried to stop her but she said she'd return me to cyberlife if i stepped any further."
"then who killed her?" leaning into the table, you watched as he averted your gaze, "she committed suicide." it was evident he cared for those children, and seeing their abuse would become something he couldn't tolerate any longer. it started to make sense, when you placed him in the same position of the perpetrator from connor's reconstruction, it all made sense. she had downed glasses of wine after murdering her children, michael finally had enough, his heart broken over the deceased children - and so he grabbed her gun, and shot her in the back of the head before placing the gun so it looked like she committed suicide.
it seems that he started to realize that you knew what happened - what he did. "we both know that's not what happened." you stated firmly. he quickly shot up from his seat, lunging across the table to knock you to the ground. your chair tipped back, causing you to fall on your back. he was quick to get on top of you, his hands immediately wrapping themselves around your throat, and his skin peeled back to reveal the white plastic underneath. you kicked, and tried to wriggle out of his grip, but he was too strong. your throat burned as his digits dug into your tender skin, his fingers right above your pulse point. it throbbed wildy underneath his fingertips, only encouraging him to keep his silence.
connor was quickly on top of him, a hand pinning him to the table while michael's hands tried to fight the deadly grip of the rk800. nines quickly pulled you out of the room, and as much as he wanted to deal with the hk200, he knew connor could handle it.
connor didn't say a word, and it terrified the android underneath his palm. he could only stare into the hot rage above him, warnings popping up in his screen warning him of a shutdown. connor had torn out his thirium pump, the tips of his fingers holding onto the pump in his hand. hot blue blood splattered over his fingers and clothing, though that was the least of his worries.
"you're going to talk," connor suddenly said. "you have approximately 120 seconds before you shut down. i suggest that you tell me the truth, otherwise it won't be the other officers you have to worry about. it'll be me." he leaned into his ear, before putting his thirium pump back into place. his forearm pushed him down into the table, preventing him from moving. "i won't tell you." michael sneered. connor said nothing, and immediately grabbed his arm to probe his memory. michael grunted, the sensation feeling like a burn throughout his body as connor searched his memories. that was all the confirmation that he needed.
michael was escorted out, and you found yourself in the bathroom again, splashing cold water onto your face. after all that happened today, you felt like you didn't solve anything. the husband would come home to his entire family gone, and you felt like you couldn't save anyone. this feeling of shame and guilt, you felt partly responsible. it brought you back to the painful memories of the last case, but this time you had connor and nines.
"you should go to a hospital," nines suggested. both of the androids had scanned you again and again, all to make sure that you were alright. "i'm okay nines," you reassured your partner. "nines?" connor joined in, his head turned to look at his replica. "yes, that is the name that was given to me from the detective." nines replied, his eyes locked onto his predecessor. connor ignored nines, and asked if you were really alright. his fingers itched to touch the bruises forming around your neck, but he pushed away the thought and focused on your well-being. "you both don't need to worry. i've been doing this for years," you replied cooly.
fowler had come up to the three of you, his intense gaze locked on you. "you should head home, l/n. we seriously cannot have you getting injured on the job again," he said sternly. connor was about to retaliate, but nines placed his arm in front of him to stop him. they made brief eye contact, communicating silently.
'don't make it worse for her,' nines said. connor ignored him, his eyes locked on yours as captain fowler scolded you while also making sure you're okay. you sighed once he left, running a hand through your hair. "i guess i'll be getting home then," you said to both the androids, noticing that connor looked worried. "let me drive you home, i feel partly responsible for your injury," he said, his hand on the small of your back again. you smiled, trying to mask the way your body responded to his touches. though, you had forgotten that connor wasn't the only one who could read your body, nines could too. his LED circled amber as he scanned you, taking note of how your temperature raised whenever he or connor was around. he bid you goodbye, and watched as you left with connor for the night.
the car ride wasn't awkward at all. one thing that separated connor from nines was the fact that connor spent more time around humans, and he knew how to make conversation easier. the sound of the car engine and rain pattering against the roof put you at ease. detroit could be pretty at night, especially when it was raining like this. "i saw you take care of that android, you can be scary," you laughed. he gave a small smile in response to your laughter, "i didn't mean for you to see that. i apologize if-"
"i'm only teasing you," you nudged his arm with a grin, "it was kind of hot." he cocked a brow, his social relations program helping him differentiate the two meanings of the word. "hot? i don't think cyberlife intended for it to come off that way.." you laughed, missing these conversations with the android. if only hank could supervise academy students forever, and you could have both rk units to yourself. "i'm worried for you detective, it seems that you're putting yourself at risk with these cases. you should be more careful," he looked over at you, his eyes flickering to your injury before returning back to the road. you eyed him as he drove, fighting the smile the threatened to crawl up your face at his concern for your well-being. "thank you connor, but that's kind of my job. i knew what i was getting into when i was training to become a cop. i know the risks, but for you i'll be more careful." it was strange for him, for him to smile without making the conscious effort to do so, for his body to do things that weren't premeditated and forced.
the more you looked at him from your peripheral, the more you saw the differences between him and nines. you never would compare them, but they were so different in personality that it was slightly humorous. sometimes when you looked into connors eyes, you couldn't help but feel like you'd give him everything. his eyes ere so soft, and the only thing you could compare it to were puppy dog eyes, the thought of it making you chuckle, causing the android look over at you. "what's funny, detective?" you shook your head, "oh nothing. i was just thinking about how hard it must be being the most attractive detective alive," you smiled. if he could blush, he definitely would. "it must be an everyday struggle for you then," he replied cheekily.
it wasn't long before he was inside of your house, awkwardly lingering at your front door while you took your shoes off. "you should stay the night, it's raining too hard for you to be going home so late." he nodded, analyzing your home. it was a modern space, decorated with matching furniture but lacking any personalized items like photos. "i'm going to change, i'll be back soon, you can hang out here,"you smiled before disappearing into a different room. he walked over to the kitchen, noticing a pet food bowl, and an orange cat purring as it rubbed it's body on his legs. he crouched down, petting the cat gently. the collar was a light pink, with the name reading 'peaches'.
you returned, only to find him very immersed with petting your cat. you smiled, crouching next to him to pet her. "she seems to like you," you said, fingers accidentally brushing against his as you pet her together. "she's nice, i like dogs and cats." you chuckled, smiling from his pure nature. he was so sweet. "androids don't sleep, do they?" you suddenly asked, after thinking about what he was going to do while you slept. "no, androids don't require things like sleeping or eating. however we do have a 'rest mode' where we temporarily shut down to reserve energy." his eyes were attentive to your exposed skin, as he was used to seeing you in long sleeved tops, and a skirt with stockings. but you were in the comfort of your home, wearing a tank top and shorts. he appreciated the view.
"that makes sense, I think I'd go insane and hallucinate after not sleeping for a couple of days," you replied, moving to the couch where he followed you. he looked cute sitting in your girly living room. his eyes flickered between you and your neck, your tank top revealing more of your neck and chest, which he tried to ignore. "it doesn't hurt if that's what you're worried about," you said, after noticing his LED turn amber a few times. he was analyzing you. "i apologize, i didn't mean to-" you cut him off by shaking your head, placing a hand on his thigh which was impossible to ignore. "that's okay, i know you're concerned. it's sweet connor, I'm thankful for you," you smiled. something fluttered within him, it was the feeling he got when he made amanda happy or accomplishing a mission, just without being literally forced to accept the woman. she was long gone, but that's what he could compare this feeling to. who knows, maybe he just liked being praised. "thank you for being understanding, detective." his thirium pump raced from the sudden contact, his skin warming from the heat of your palm. "please, call me by my name. even in the office. you're my friend," you rested your hand on his shoulder, the urge to just touch him everywhere overwhelming you. "okay, y/n." the sound of your name rolling off his tongue was something that you enjoyed too much.
his eyes were trained on the floor, a pang of guilt welling up inside him from today's events. "i still feel responsible for your injury." you sighed, "connor, it's okay. it's not your fault." your hand moved to his, and you held his hand gently. there it was, that feeling again. he wanted you to hold his hand forever. your thumb brushed over his knuckles, and he gently squeezed your fingers in response. you suddenly got shy, as your eyes avoided his and you slightly warmed from what you were going to ask. "connor?" you asked for his attention, and he'd give it to you, no questions asked. he titled his head slightly, finding it hard to focus when you were holding his hand. it was far more intimate than any other gestures you've given, besides hugs, he might've found a favorite. "what is it det- y/n?" he corrected. "can i hug you?" you smiled shyly at him. it was unusual for you to ask since you'd always just go ahead and hug him (not that he minded), but it seemed like in your personal space and a much more secluded area, you seemed to be more nervous when alone with him. "of course you can, you don't need to ask. is that why you were nervous?" he teased, and you smiled before leaning into him and wrapping your arms around his body. hugging him wasn't what you expected- it was nothing like hugging a mannequin, but it wasn't like hugging a human. he still had the warmth and the softness from his skin, but under that was plastic and metal that made his body feel more firm. almost like how you'd touch flexed muscles, his body was similar to that.
his arms were wrapped around your waist, a little more loosely than yours. he liked the way you smelled, your smell was comforting in a way. as an android, he could register smells, but he didn't experience them in the same way as humans. certain smells are tied to memories, like a home cooked meal reminding you of childhood. yet your scent made him feel a certain way that he couldn't describe, no matter how many times he tried to compute it. it was just a pleasurable feeling. you smelled good all the time, everytime you hugged him he'd smell bright crystal by versace. "i have a question, y/n." he suddenly spoke. you hummed into his shoulder, prompting him to continue. "what makes you so affectionate towards me?" you almost laughed at his question, but it made you stop and think for a second. he could feel your heart race, and he didn't know why, it was a simple question.
"because I like you." you pulled away, looking to see his reaction. "thank you, I like you too. it's a great pleasure to be working with you," he gave a soft smile, not quite understanding what you really meant. you laughed, and shook your head. "I meant I have feelings for you. and it's okay, I don't expect you to return them, but I just want you to know that I've liked you for a really long time now."
his brows furrowed slightly, now understanding what you meant. you were worried, did he like you too? it had been strange for him. to deny his feelings at first, to ignore the increased whir of his thirium pump when you were around, to distract himself from how good your touch made him feel. to try to talk to someone else because he felt the need to be around you all the time. lately he's been more accepting of these feelings, and some of the new urges he's discovered. he's never felt the urge to want to touch someone before, to see you do things that were completely inappropriate. at first, he felt shame for thinking about you that way. but when he came to accept that it was probably normal, it was easier to let loose. his silence made you worry, but he was happier than he's ever been in his entire life. his LED was showing that he was currently processing the information, and he tried to hide how happy he really was. "I have feelings for you too, and I don't think I would've ever admitted them because I was afraid of rejection," he admitted, a soft smile tugging at his pink lips.
him? connor? the deviant hunter was afraid of being rejected by you? it almost made you laugh, because the thought was so bizarre to you. "are you serious? you were afraid?" you teased him back, and he rolled his eyes at your comment. he looked at you, and then your lips. you did the same, hoping that the two of you were sharing the same thought. in an instant, his lips were on yours. it was a completely new sensation to him, since the only thing to touch his lips were his fingers when analyzing DNA, so the feeling of your plush lips against his own was very new. he liked it.
your hand found its way on the side of his neck, and you deepened the kiss by gently pushing him back onto the couch. his LED pulsed a steady blue, even if inside he felt like he was burning up. he'd never felt so hot before, the component that circled cool air into his system working twice as hard to keep him from overheating. your tongue ran across his bottom lip, and he couldn't deny that he really liked that. your tongue then pushed past his pearly whites, and he actually thought he might catch on fire if you keep pushing him like this. his hands ran up the small of your back, and he pulled you into his lap, making you pull away from the kiss momentarily - a string of saliva connecting your mouths. you pulled him back by his tie, your fingers looping around the fabric to loosen it. it started with his tie, then his jacket, and then your fingers were slowly unbuttoning his shirt. he tilted his head back, allowing you to kiss his neck and the middle of his throat, your tongue running down his adams apple.
he was experiencing pure bliss, the feeling of your tongue running against his skin almost burning him from the heat. your kisses started in between his collarbones, and then it led down his sculpted stomach. you were pleasantly surprised by his muscular physique that hid underneath his clothes. through the jacket, you couldn't see much, but now you were able to see how strong he actually was. cyberlife intended for him to be stronger, and in doing so they gave him a lean yet muscular physique in order to be faster and precise. you slowly shifted to your knees, kneeling in between his thighs. you pushed his legs apart, and rested your arms on his thighs, while your fingers played with his belt. his cock strained against his boxers and his jeans as he looked down at you. your palm pressed on his crotch, and he clenched his jaw from the sudden pressure. fuck, you were going to break him.
"shit," he hissed, feeling more of your hand pressing on him through his jeans. it was a first hearing him curse, and fuck did it turn you on. before you continued, you momentarily stopped to ask him if it was okay. he nodded, his breathing becoming heavier as you unbuckled his belt. you pulled his jeans down enough to where his boxers were exposed, and fuck you didn't expect him to be so...big. it was hard to hide your surprise at his size, and you finally knew why he was always in a good mood. he smirked, his head tilting while his hand ran through your hair. you pulled his cock out gently, kissing his tip before wetting the length with your tongue. you made direct eye contact with him while you ran your tongue up the length of his cock. he nearly came just from the sight.
"you're so pretty," you complimented, before taking him in your mouth. the artificial muscles in his thighs clenched from the heat and wetness from your mouth, and he didn't know if he could handle being inside you if your mouth felt this heavenly. he let out soft grunts, making you clench your thighs together. you spit on his pink tip, before swirling your tongue around the head of his cock, your hands working up his length. you took him in your mouth again, your eyes tearing up from his tip hitting your throat as he gently thrusted into your mouth. his breathing became heavier, grunting while his head tipped back. you were surprised to feel his fingers gripping your hair, before you realized that he was holding you in place. he grunted one last time, before cumming into your mouth. unlike humans, his cum didn't have a certain taste as it was artificial, yet there was still something delicious about it, and you practically licked your lips clean.
your knees ached from being on the floor, and you were surprised yet again when he kissed you again, this time more hungry. you kissed back with the same amount of hunger, your lust never ending for the android that was above you. you laid on your couch, watching as he placed his hands on either side of your head. it was his turn to be in-between your thighs, and you whimpered feeling his cock press against the outline of your shorts. "i want you just as bad as you want me," he muttered into the crook of your neck, his lips kissing at your jaw and neck. unfortunately you couldn't bruise android skin, but he could bruise yours easily. his tongue licked at your skin, and he began to suck to leave a hickey. your hands traced the muscles on his back, your palms running up and down the smooth skin. "yeah? prove it," you challenged, watching as he nearly tore your shorts off, leaving you feeling exposed.
he was a little overwhelmed by so many urges at once, the urge to break you and leave you begging for him, or to fuck you until you cry. your back arched as he started to kiss your exposed cleavage, sitting up on his knees to squeeze your boobs. he'd be lying if he said he hadn't thought about doing this before. you moaned, watching as he lifted up your tank top and discarded it to the side. he kissed your chest, and you arched your back enough for him to remove your bra. he looked down at you, admiring how pretty you are. "you're prettier," he replied to the comment you made earlier, leaning down to squeeze and play with your boobs. he pushed your hips down from moving up into his, his palms holding you down easily. he decided to do the same, and pressed a thumb against your clothed pussy. you whimpered as he moved his thumb in slow circles, applying the right amount of pressure for you to be arching your back.
"my mouth isn't just for sampling dna, you know," he uttered lowly, his lips pressing against your pussy. you felt so hot, your skin burned from every touch. his hands gripped at your thighs, before moving one of his hands to tear your panties off. he didn't know if he could hold himself back, but for your sake he tried. "oh fuck," you whimpered as he ran a tongue up your slit, brown eyes peering up at you for your reaction. your brows twisted in pleasure, as his tongue began to work magic on you. the tip of his tongue swirled deliciously around your clit, before his lips sealed around you. it didn't take you long until you came on his tongue, his middle and ring finger buried deep into you while his mouth lapped at your clit. your abs clenched, your back arching and your toes curling as you unleash yourself on his mouth.
the moans that spill past your mouth are filthy, filling up the room along with the smell of sex. his fingers shove themselves into your mouth, and you're forced to taste yourself while you look up at the android above you. he looked so hot, his lips were slightly parted and shiny from being in between your thighs. his hair was slightly messy from you tugging on it, which he didn't mind. how his hair looked was the last thing he was thinking about. all he was thinking about was fucking you until you couldn't take it anymore. you lovingly suck on his fingers until his fingers are stripped of your taste, your tongue grazes his knuckles as he pulls them out from your mouth.
"is this your first time?" you asked, your fingers tracing his jaw and running down his chest. "yeah," his short response made you grin, and you pushed him back into the couch, immediately crawling onto his lap. his dick rests against his stomach, and you guide it back to your slit, hovering over him slightly in order to put it in. he looks down at your hand wrapped around his dick, capturing all of this and storing it into a special area that could only be accessed by him. he was definitely going to look at this later. you slowly sink onto his cock, the both of you grunting from the pressure. he seems to be in pure bliss, his head tilting back, his pretty pink lips parted and brows furrowed. if you could take a picture, you would. you gently rock against him, moving your hips slowly in order to not overwhelm him. your hands rest against his chest, and his hands grip onto your hips as you ride him slowly. you lean down and kiss his neck, adding onto the pleasure he was feeling right now. soft gasps and groans slipped out from his mouth uncontrollably, as he started to lose himself in the feeling of you clenched around him. you started to move faster, a pace that only brought the two of you closer to your end. your pussy wrapped around him deliciously, your wetness dripping down and spilling onto his thighs. he wasn't going to let you have all of the control, though.
it might have been his first time, but he sure knew how to fuck like he'd been doing it for years. he suddenly picked you up, with his cock still inside, and pressed you up against the nearest wall. you gasped, legs and arms wrapping around him in fear of being dropped. "don't worry, I'm not gonna drop you," he murmured against your neck, his strong arms holding you up with ease as he started to pound into you. your head titled back as you pushed your hips into him, his inhuman stamina keeping you up in the air, while miraculously being able to hit the spot that made you nearly scream.
"c'mon, take it, i know you can" he encouraged, his cock hitting that spot that made your toes curl. "cum on this dick, i know you want to," he continued, his voice low and demanding as he leaned next to your ear. it was different from how he spoke at the office, with professionalism and respect. but right now, he was fucking you like he had no respect for you, like he hated you. his pace was brutal, filling your pussy up until you couldn't take it. his cock rested heavy inside you, stretching your pussy out in the best way possible. his hand held you by the throat, while his body supported the weight of yours. "oh my god, fuck," you whimpered, your pussy clenching around his cock before you came all over him. he grunted, gasping as his cum poured into you, combining into a mess on your thighs and his own. he thrusted into you a few more times, enjoying the whimpers that slipped past your lips, the way you begged him to stop, the sound of your voice telling him that it was too much. he pulled out gently, cock dragging against the warm walls of your pussy. a new feeling overcame him as he watched his artificial cum drip out your pussy. you returned to your feet, nearly dropping a whole head as he'd been holding you up at eye length. you truly didn't understand how he was able to do so much. goddamn.
"i have no idea how you're able to hold me up like that," you took a second to control your breathing. he smirked, "my stamina and strength were designed to help catch deviants, though I'd say that I prefer fucking you over the mission." you softly gasped, hitting his arm playfully. "I've never heard you curse before," you giggle, doing a little walk of shame to retrieve your clothing. he mimicked your movements, putting his boxers and pants on first, while you lazily threw on your tank top and panties. you stopped him before he could put on his dress shirt. "I don't usually curse when I'm at work, as it's not professional, but we're not at the police department, are we?" he cocked his head, watching curiously as you put on his grey jacket over his bare upper body. "no, we are not," you smile, stepping back to admire your work. "what is the point of wearing a jacket if I'm not wearing anything underneath?" he questioned, watching as you eyed his body. "it's hot," you comment, dragging a hand down his bare stomach, your fingers tracing over his abs. "i look like i work at the eden club," he replied, not very fond of this look. you giggled, pulling him into you for another kiss.
it might have been the first time in a while that you've felt like you were doing something right. whatever you felt with connor, it felt right. he felt the same as you, he felt like having you in his life was something he wouldn't be able to let go. the two of you stayed like this, not putting a label on things yet, and being content with the things way are. you were happy, and so was connor.
though you couldn't deny the slight feelings of desire that you had for his counterpart. you felt guilty for having thoughts about nines. he was your partner. you felt selfish for wanting them both, and you didn't want to have to make a choice with who you wanted to be with, because that wasn't fair. you weren't saying that nines would even have feelings for you, but the mere thought was just enough to make you consider all the possibilities. what you didn't know, was that connor was well aware of the feelings you might have for nines, as well as him. he noticed the looks you gave, the thrum of your heart if he came too close. he didn't know why, but he didn't mind. he didn't mind seeing you look at nines like that, probably because they had the same face. but also because he wanted nines to enjoy you too. he could tell that nines was having the same thoughts, and if only you knew what was going on in his head. the thought of you being used by both of them was exciting. you don't know what's in store, but you know what you're here for.
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AUTHORS NOTE: ur a real one if u get the reference at the end, but I just wanted to say I'm so grateful for all the support that you guys show me ♡ I hope i didnt miss any tags, so pls lmk if i did !! ALSOO i'm so sorry for using y/n. i hate it but i literally don't know what else to put.
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deanmarywinchester · 4 months
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previous years: 2022, 2021 / list of worst sf/f/horror
the bangers were BANGING this year, I kept mentally readjusting my top 5 list every time I read something good so the honorable mentions are extremely honorable this year. I hope you read anything that sounds good from this list and tell me about it!
top 5:
chain gang all stars by nana kwame adjei-brenyah: when I say that this book is like the hunger games for adults, I’m not making a glib comparison between two books about fighting to the death, I’m saying that I haven’t felt so intensely about a book since I stayed up late to tear through the hunger games and sob about it when I was thirteen. this book is satire as real and devastating as I’ve ever read, with action scenes that feel like they’re being dripped directly into my hindbrain and a unique and believable love story. put it on hold at your library literally RIGHT now.
the actual star by monica byrne: about a post-climate catastrophe utopian society built around a religion started by a teenage girl in 2012 based on mayan traditions, and also about the teenage girl, and also about the maya. this book made me crazy because the future society felt real enough to touch, with its radical openness and collectivity solving problems that exist today but causing new ones that are totally novel and meaty and interesting to dig into. read it if you’re interested in different ways of being.
the spear cuts through water by simon jiménez: really, REALLY good, fresh, original epic fantasy. jimenez picks a few perspectives to stick to but hops fluidly into bystanders’ brains to give you their perspectives, so even background characters feel fleshed-out and no one’s pain is dismissed as a side effect of heroic battles or whatever. highly recommended if you like framing narratives and stories about stories, and like epic fantasy but wish it wasn’t mostly about finding acceptable enemies to slaughter with cool swords
the dispossessed by ursula k. le guin: I love how much this book is about hope as clear-eyed commitment to the boring and difficult work of a brighter and necessary future. sometimes the work of the glorious anarcho-communist revolution is leaving your university post and romantic partner for months at a time to dig irrigation ditches so nobody starves when there’s a drought. read this book for diplomatic conniving, a clash of values between a capitalist planet and its dissident moon, and hope.
imperial radch trilogy and its spinoffs by ann leckie: what if you were built to be a weapon of the empire, a serene sentient battleship with thousands of human bodies all containing your consciousness, and you lost all bodies but one and had to figure out how to be a person, singular and alone? what if you were a 19th century british military officer and you slept for a thousand years into the decline of the empire? what if you were grown in a vat to be a facsimile of human and then told off for eating all your siblings even though eating them was SO interesting? what then. leckie’s prose is incisive and funny, her unreliable narrators are wonderful, and her stories are intimate even though the backdrops are insanely huge. 👍.
honorable mentions:
house of leaves by mark z. danielewski: guys? anyone hearda this one? anyway. Something Is Wrong With This House horror with themes of storytelling and grief. recommending that you slam this book as fast as possible like I did so you can hold all its layers in your head at once.
the lathe of heaven by ursula k le guin: i thought I didn’t like ursula k le guin, and then I read this book, went OH and immediately devoured the hainish cycle. im so sorry miss ursula. this book about a hapless pacific northwesterner whose therapist is making him dream different realities into being is so sharp and sly and funny. themes of choices, ends and means.
he who drowned the world by shelley parker-chan: I liked the prequel to this addition to the radiant emperor duology. I LOVED this book. parker-chan has invented new and exciting modes of fucked-up codependency and im obsessed. historical light-fantasy with themes of ideals vs what it takes to reach them, gender, and regret.
babel by r. f. kuang: found the didacticism of this book annoying, but i really loved the concept of this novel and the way it slowly ratchets up the stakes. this novel is for people who want to smash the fun of the magic school genre against the reality of universities’ complicity in the imperial machine.
piranesi by susannah clarke: im late to this book but it’s such a weird little gem. peaceful yet unsettling. a man takes care of an endless house with an ocean inside it until he realizes the house is stealing his memories. themes of memory and devotion.
hell follows with us by andrew joseph white: I can only read YA these days if it’s a reread or if it’s genuinely good and really really strange. this is that. weird gory fantasy about a trans teen who escapes his militarized post-apocalyptic christian cult and finds himself turning into something Different. my only gripe is that he uses 2023-perfect language to describe transness and I think he should be inventing genders weve never even thought of. such is YA.
some desperate glory by emily tesch: a rolickin’ good space opera time with terrible women <3. a thriller about how the golden child of her isolated human-supremacist space station cult deprograms and the consequences of it. this feels like a grown-up SPOP until the theoretical physics gets involved. big fan
the library of mount char by scott hawkins: this book is harrow the ninth in suburbia until it becomes a more macabre version of the absurdity of the gomens apocalypse. God raises his children, sometimes brutally, to hone their powers in a neighborhood that mysteriously keeps out outsiders. came for the dysfunctional mess of the god-children and now I can never look at a grill the same way
runners up:
bunny by mona awad: books that make you WISH you were in mona awad’s MFA program where she must have been having a terrible time. the weird one out in an MFA program accepts overtures into the unbearable rich-girls’ clique to find out what they’re Up To. themes of aimlessness and the intersection of class with the art world
camp damascus by chuck tingle: have you ever wished that you were simply too autistic to be successfully demonically brainwashed into not having gay thoughts? horror-flavored thriller that was just fun
light from uncommon stars by ryka aoki: this author put a bunch of genres in a blender and came up with something fun and surprisingly cozy. an immortal woman must sell violinists’ souls to the devil in exchange for their fame, or he’ll drag her to damnation instead. there might be aliens and coffeeshop romance involved. definitely a blender.
the fragile threads of power by v. e. schwab: if you haven’t read a darker shade of magic and you like tightly paced high fantasy and historical fantasy elements, political intrigue, and pirates, read that first. if you have, there’s more now! lila bard are you free on thursday when I am free
the library of the dead & our lady of mysterious ailments by t. l. huchu: a teenage girl provides for her family in soft-apocalypse magic edinburgh with a job carrying messages from ghosts to their living relatives. an ongoing mystery series about the intrigues she uncovers among the dead.
severance by ling ma: this books is on the list of media that is the terror to me: it's about an apocalyptic disease that makes people reenact their routines mindlessly until they collapse. intimate apocalypse novel with themes of late capitalist malaise.
ocean’s echo by everina maxwell: i didn't really like winter's orbit because i'm just not a romance guy, but this second novel stands alone and the romance is more insane and less of the entire point of the novel. (also it's between essentially Discworld's Carrot and Moist Von Lipwig, which is. really something.) in the Space Military, a buttoned-up mind controller must pretend to bend a socialite with illegal mind-reading powers to his will. what if fake relationship but the relationship they have to fake is "brain linked master/servant pair."
the murderbot diaries by martha wells: novellas about a misanthropic security android who jailbroke itself in order to watch tv. the name "murderbot" is a joke but it very much did kill people <3 themes of paranoia and outsiderhood, corporate wrongdoing, repentance, and trust
black water sister by zen cho: zen cho is good at any kind of fantasy she writes, including this, her first modern fantasy novel. a closeted lesbian has to move in with her family in malaysia after college in the US, only to discover that her dead grandmother has some unfinished business involving a local goddess and a conniving real estate developer. themes of family, gender, and place.
the way inn by will wiles: a man who’s paid to pretend he’s other people to attend conferences in their place gets trapped in an endless Marriott. has the sharp humor of a colson whitehead corporate satire until it becomes more straightforwardly horror-flavored.
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humansofnewyork · 7 months
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(35/54) “Every morning we woke to the sound of shots coming from the prison near our house. The executions were always held at dawn. When the newspaper arrived later that morning, it would show the names and photographs of the dead. An atmosphere of fear began to spread across the country. It wasn’t just the killings. It was the news of the killings, the manner of the killings. They were random. They followed no law. Revolutionary tribunals were formed to deal with enemies of the regime, but there was no due process. Sometimes there wouldn’t even be a trial. Khomeini appointed an executioner as one of the judges. A bus would arrive at his court. He’d let one person pass, then hold the next. When the entire bus had been emptied, the people who were held back would be executed. The story spread across the country. When violence is random, when it is undeserved, when there is no 𝘥𝘢𝘢𝘥, everyone begins to think: I could be next. And that’s exactly what the regime wanted. People grew silent. They would only speak their mind inside their homes. One month after the revolution, there was the first protest against the regime. It happened on International Women’s Day. Thousands of women took to the streets to protest the mandatory hijab. They called for the freedom to choose. 𝘈𝘻𝘢𝘥𝘪. They screamed their slogans in the streets. But their words were never heard. The regime had already taken over the media, and the protests weren’t mentioned anywhere. And then there were the police, the people who were supposed to defend them. They fell on the women like savages, beating them with batons. Calling them ‘whores’ and ‘sluts.’ Bystanders looked on in fear. Nobody tried to defend them. No one spoke a word. There was silence.” 
اعدام‌ها سپیده‌دمان انجام می‌شد. هر بامداد با صدای تیرباران‌ها بیدار می‌شدیم. دیرتر، هنگامی که روزنامه‌ می‌رسید، عکس و نام کشته‌شدگان را می‌دیدیم. هاله‌‌ی ترس ایران را فرا گرفته بود. کشتن‌ تنها نبود. شیوه‌ی کشتن‌ها هم بود. آشفته بود. از هیچ قانونی پیروی نمی‌کرد. دادگاه‌های انقلابی برای برخورد با دشمنان رژیم برپا شده بودند. گاه دادگاهی هم برگزار نمی‌شد. یکی از دژخیمانی که خمینی برگزیده بود مسئول اصلی کشتارها بود. اگر اتوبوسی به دادسرای او می‌رسید، سرنشینانش را یکی در میان نگه می‌داشت. ‌پس از پیاده شدن همه‌ی سرنشینان، آنهایی را که نگه داشته بود، بی‌دادرسی اعدام می‌کرد. هنگامی که قانون نباشد، هنگامی که عدالت و دادگری نباشد، همه گمان می‌کنند، شاید نفر بعدی منم و رژیم درست همین را می‌خواست! مردم هراسیده بودند. خاموش شده بودند. یک ماه پس از انقلاب، اولین اعتراض خیابانی بر ضد رژیم رخ داد. در روز جهانی زن، هزاران زن به خیابان‌ها آمدند تا دربرابر حجاب اجباری اعتراض کنند. آنها خواهان آزادی انتخاب بودند. شعارهایشان را در خیابان‌ها فریاد می‌زدند. ولی صداهایشان شنیده نشد. تا آن زمان رژیم رسانه‌ها را در چنگ گرفته بود. هیچ جایی نامی از آنها برده نشد. سپس پلیس‌ و شهربانی - کسانی که باید از آنها دفاع می‌کردند با وحشیانه‌ترین و خشن‌ترین شکل ممکن به آنها حمله کردند، آنها را هرزه و فاحشه خواندند و با باتون زدند. هیچ کس در دفاع از آنها سخن نگفت. هیچکس سخنی نگفت. خاموشی بود.
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tyrannoslex · 2 years
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batfam headcanons bc i hyperfixate on them…again
anyway:
— jason stabs people to the rhythm of poker face by lady gaga
— dick gets banned on every social media site bc of his name
— when damian told tim he named one of his pets after him, he didn’t expect it to be one of the rats that live in the attic
— tim eats cucumbers with ketchup unironically (it‘s his fav midnight snack)
— they played uno ONCE and then never again
— same with monopoly and literally any other board game (exception is when alfred is present at all times and keeps them in check)
— jason was a theater kid in middle school and bruce went to all of his plays even if he only played tree nr 2
— tim and steph BEGGED bruce for a dance dance revolution…there are competitions every friday night, the loser has to go to brucie‘s gala‘s
— dick destroyed two (2) tv‘s so far because he forgot to fasten the wrist band of the wii controller when he played bowling with jason
— bruce complaints about everything his kids have been up to in a dairy (it‘s his nightly ritual)
— cass reads the dairies
— damian went as batman to halloween
— jason has an ao3 account and writes batman x bruce wayne fanfiction
— he is also one of these authors with the most fucked up explanations as to way he updates too late („sorry the chapter is late, i was dead for like six months but don‘t worry i am fine now“, „sorry for the delay had a brawl with some thug, turns out his grandmother’s name is martha too“ etc.)
— the whole fam cramped into the batmobile once after an exhausting patrol and demanded mc donalds. Bruce roled up in mc drive only to order a single black coffee. The drive-through worker was like this:
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— Dick is a giant „Tim and Bernard“ enthusiasts. He plans a date at a baseball game. Dick pays the camera man to focus the kiss cam on the two. He cheers the loudest when they actually kiss. He dragged the whole bunch along too. Steph filmed everything. Duke apologizes to the bystanders. Cass is buying merch. Jason throws popcorn into the hood of a guy seated in front of them. Damian chews on his vegan gummy bears trying to find the quickest escape route.
— jason definitely spray painted the batman suit at least once
— tim once confused sugar w salt and put it in his coffee…he didn’t notice until he was half way done with his cup.
— damian has a pet tarantula
— jason is terrified of said tarantula
— bruce drooled on the keyboard of the batcomputer once after falling asleep in the cave
— alfred took photos of it
— Dick makes dick jokes
— damian tripped over his cape once but that is between him and the homeless guy who saw him
— damian planned to turn the cave into a petting zoo
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favroitecrime · 7 months
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Anyway, I reinstate my point that no 18+ settler in israel is innocent. They have all picked up guns and fired them at innocent Palestinians. To look at the apartheid and constant attempted genocide that israel has been committing against Palestine and yet have the fucking audacity to argue a bullshit “two innocent” sides narrative is a joke. israel since the beginning of its colony like establishment in 1948 has always been a terrorist state.* Backed by two other major colonial powers who still continue to oppress the people they’ve colonized to this day. Who backed the South African apartheid and were not in favor of pressuring the SA government to stop the apartheid. The colony state sentenced to be merely an influential Western placement in the Middle East has never, and never will be, an innocent bystander in matters of oppression, apartheid, or ethnic cleansing.
In the same breath I would support Native Americans attempting to do the same thing in the US. I would support Natives of Canada doing the same thing. I would support Natives of Australia, Natives of New Zealand, Puerto Rico, the Polynesian islands, and every other occupied people should they decide to rise up and take back what is rightfully theirs. **You and I in our privileged world should not have the fucking audacity to police people’s resistance & liberation**. Especially when some of us have had nothing to say when they were facing the brutalities of occupation.
Keep you two sides narrative to yourselves. It’s a liberation. Down with modern colonizers. Down with modern colonies.
For the notes:
*A post listing some of the crimes israel has committed against Palestinians. I will not trouble myself with finding sources for this very, very long list. Eye.on.palestine // paliroots // letstalkpalestine all have great videos, pictures, and broken down explanations of these crimes. Can be found on instagram or twitter. A majority of these crimes can also be looked up, but heed falling into traps of western/israeli (is there really a difference?) propaganda.
**Yes fucking obviously rape and child murder are bad and harming actual innocent civilians is bad do not try that stupid card here. You know exactly what I’m referring to when I say policing revolution and any attempt to misunderstand that is a deflection.
***And yes fucking obviously anyone using this genuine tragedy as a prop for nazism/antisemitism needs to die immediately like no fucking duh bozo.
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wowbright · 2 years
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Since I'm seeing anti-voting posts on my dash again, and Tumblr is even *recommending* them to me, let's be clear about this--
Voting is one of the most basic tools for participating in American government and policy. It is not perfect, but it is there.
The people who say that change is possible without voting, that protecting minority interests is possible without voting, rarely lay out a course for how those things could be accomplished.
Sometimes, they make vague promises that "activism" and "pushing for change" is what is needed instead of voting. This makes no sense. Engaging with elected officials is an inherent part of activism. Voting is a way of engaging with elected officials. Voting is activism.
No, some say. Not that kind of activism.
Okay, then what kind of activism?
Historically, the only way to accomplish change without voting is through physical force, i.e. warfare.
That's right. Warfare. Like the Civil War, or I guess what we will soon be calling Civil War I. There are, of course, other names for this besides warfare. Rebellion, revolution, extrajudicial killings. They all involve violence, they all involve killing people, and they all involve killing bystanders. They all also involve massive deaths on your side as well as the other.
But no! you say. What about Gandhi? Well, Gandhi was one actor in an anti-colonial movement that also involved violence and physical force. People died--more Indians than British.
Are deaths as part of a revolution or war worth it? That is a separate discussion to be had. I'm not commenting on that here.
I merely want to highlight for anyone who has not read between the lines that change, without voting, is very unlikely to occur without widescale violence. If you are promoting anti-voting rhetoric, then by default, you need to be okay with this possibility.
If you are not okay with that possibility, then you need to rethink what you are doing.
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workingclasshistory · 2 years
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On this day, 2 October 1968, the Tlatelolco massacre took place in Mexico City when police murdered hundreds of students demonstrating peacefully, just prior to the start of the Olympic Games in the city. At the time, many workers and poor farmers were fighting for better conditions, and the government responded with violent repression during what is known as the "dirty war". People were angry at the huge cost of staging the Olympics, as well as police repression. And so, on 2 October around 10,000 school and university students gathered in protest at the Plaza de las Tres Culturas in Mexico City, chanting: "We don't want Olympics, we want revolution!" A little after 6 PM, 5,000 troops surrounded the square and began firing into the crowd and nearby buildings. Throughout the night, soldiers and police officers went on a rampage, rounding people up, and beating and killing protesters, bystanders and local residents. Authorities and the media claimed that troops were defending themselves from sniper fire, but it was much later revealed that the snipers who began shooting were members of the Presidential Guard. The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had been in close contact with Mexican authorities as it was concerned about protests against the Olympic Games, and the US military provided them with equipment, weapons and ammunition. Six days before the massacre, Mexican federal security told the CIA that "the situation will be under complete control very shortly". https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.1819457841572691/2097587127093093/?type=3
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uh-velkommen · 7 months
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I hope season three of Young Royals slows down just a little bit.
I know I praised A LOT how fast paced season one was. Every scene had a purpose in progressing the plot, it was all intentional, and the pacing was consistent. However, there were moments when time seemed to slow down. The scene where Simon is comforting Wilhelm in bed after the "revolution" scene. Up until they wake up the next day in a cast of warm orange lighting and Wilhelm gets dressed to catch breakfast. The date/walk in the woods, those scenes, where it's just Simon and Wilhelm in their own little worlds.
In season two, things didn't feel as fast paced. In fact, some scenes felt very drawn out. Every scene with Simon singing, his interactions with Marcus, Sara in the cafe with her friends, and the scene where Wilhelm is walking around listening to music at sunset (seriously wtf was that). They felt like they lingered on for just a bit too long or that if they were trimmed down a little it would make little to no difference to the scene. Season two suffered from trying to give every single storyline its equal share of screentime and because of that other plotlines suffered or were dropped. And even when we did get scenes that were supposed to slow down like in season one, they didn't stand out as much because of how uniform it was to the rest of the episode or for other reasons. Simon and Wilhelm finally share a kiss again and we're unable to step into their world because we're worried about Marcus finding out, we're worried about Simon having to preform at the same time. Simon and Wilhelm hook up in Wille's room and it's quick and lit in a dim blue, it has this unique framing that makes it feel a little less interpersonal, we are no longer experiencing it with them, rather we are just bystanders, observers, and uhh we're really focused on the curtains being open.
In season one, in some way or another, everyone's story came back to/connected to Wilhelm. Season two veers away from that, turning into this Degrassi like show where every character is getting their own little arch just for existing rather than for progressing the main plot. When I say I hope season three slows down a bit, I mean I hope it takes the pressure off of itself when it comes to trying to wrap up every single plotline in a nice little bow. We don't need to know if Stella and Fredrika are endgame or if Nils gets a boyfriend. We want to see if the Eriksson family finds unity. We want to know if August, Wilhelm, and the Queen find common ground. We don't need to know if Simon gets another choir solo or if Marcus (so help me god) makes a reappearance. We wanna know if Rosh and Ayub honestly support Wilmon. And lastly, we want scenes that remind us of why we're fighting so hard for Wilhelm and Simon to be endgame. We want to see their goofy smiles again, laughing, and enjoying each others company. We want scenes that bring us back into that warmth. We want time to slow down and we need some bit of happiness mixed in with the tragedy. We need the balance of drama that season one had!
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charmikarma · 2 months
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isn't it interesting how all the alpha guardians (minus poppop) are like. resistance heroes? whereas the beta guardians were all just kinda... making sburb happen? resigned to the fact that the world was gonna end and they were gonna die?
this same kind of dichotomy shows up when we look at the beta kids vs the alpha kids too. the beta kids are regarded as heroes; the alpha kids are dubbed "nobles" because they're not fated to save anything. their job is to WAIT for the heroes to come.
in the epilogues too... in candy specifically, we see jade, rose, and dave all end up in the resistance, while john sits on his ass and ponders reality. meanwhile the rest of the alpha kids are either actively making things horrible (jane), dead (dirk), or bystanders to the horrible state of things (jake, and roxy KIND OF until we find out she's in on the revolution in hs2)
the same thing doesn't Quite follow for meat, but jane and jake do end up staying behind when dirk fucking loses it.
i dunno. there's something here. something about the "heroes" vs "nobles" thing
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skeine · 10 months
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@cerismae really hit the nail on the head pointing out the fundamental hypocrisy of "How dare you consider Ludinus's position, he's a terrible person! He killed Orym/Fearne/Laudna/Orym's family!"
In the temple episode, the Bells Hells also killed innocent bystanders (two guards) in pursuit of what they thought was the right and noble thing to do (free the town folk from an oppressive leader).
How was this ok, but what Ludinus and Otohan did not? The parallels between Orym and Ludinus are striking. Both are willing to kill to achieve goals they think are noble and condone those they work with doing so.
Ludinus is also, just like the Bells Hells did in that town, starting a revolution against what he sees as systemic oppression. And when have those in power ever given up their privileges without being forced to? How many revolutions have succeeded without violence?
Matt's done a fantastic job muddying the waters and twisting the knife. I do wonder if this is keeping Orym up nights. It should.
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lazarish · 5 months
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No wait I want all the backstories in every AU pls
Well if you INSIST
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School AU:
This is basically a kdrama
Misty's parents die in an accident caused by the Sage corporation, she gets a full ride scholarship to the country's best high school so she doesn't go to the media (so she's orphaned at 16 instead of as a child)
Ends up in a love triangle between the heir of the Sage group and "King" of the school, Nadir, and the son of the Sage group's biggest rival, Atlas, who has just returned from ✨abroad✨ after some scandal no one will talk about
Selene is initially a bystander when her classmates bully Misty but eventually she stands up for her and uses her own reputation to protect her new friend
The only kdrama in history where she ends up with the second lead
Was nadir inspired by Gu Jun Pyo? We may never know
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Historical AU:
Setting: a nation on the verge of a revolution
Misty goes to the castle to become a maid in hopes of making a better life for herself, ends up befriending the sheltered princess and helping her understand how bad things are for the kingdom
Things get complication when the revolution infiltrates the palace in the form of the formerly exiled (Im gonna say Duke? Hell if I know how royalty works) Atlas
Nadir probably gets guillotined, sorry kit
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Idol AU:
This was the song stuck in my head when I was doing their outfits
Misty and Selene debut together in a group that's named after butterflies somehow because I have a brand™
Atlas and Nadir were in the same group but Atlas got kicked out (probably because of Nadir)
Misty eventually steps away from the spotlight and produces for Selene
Selene just. Becomes berry IU because that's what she deserves.
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Vanilla AU:
It's just the same. Genuinely it's just the same. They might have different names?
You can take the girl out of the pink but you can't take the pink out of the girl
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Cyberpunk AU:
This one would need the most worldbuilding but I imagine it's the same berry world just a few hundred years in the future
Selene's family is extremely rich and influential, so she lives completely sheltered and ignorant of what the world is really like- until one day she accidentally sees her brother's files and realizes she isn't really Selene Elysian
The real girl died young because of a genetic disease, and she's a highly advanced robot created to replace the real daughter so no one ever knows.
She has an identity crisis, runs away, and is taken in by Misty who at this point is making a living off salvaging valuable materials from discarded tech
Misty teaches Selene about the outside world, and together they realize that Selene can do a lot more than any other robot on the market, meaning her family is hiding some kind of dangerous and advanced technology
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I'm not good at making pets in the sims but you get the Vibes
Selene is the fluffiest possible cat
Misty is a King Charles Cavalier because my friends have a cute KCC named Nell and she's one of my favourite creatures
I genuinely had more ideas for this edit but I had to stop myself lmao, I could spend forever dressing up my girls and giving them happy endings
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Interesting history of the English Brolly
The Public Shaming of England’s First Umbrella User
This pioneer of weather management was pelted with insults and trash.
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Jonas Hanway walking into the rain, with—controversially—an umbrella. (Photo: Bettmann/Getty Images)
IN THE EARLY 1750S, AN Englishman by the name of Jonas Hanway, lately returned from a trip to France, began carrying an umbrella around the rainy streets of London.
People were outraged. Some bystanders hooted and jeered at Hanway as he passed; others simply stared in shock. Who was this strange man who seemed not to care that he was committing a social sin?
Hanway was the first man to parade an umbrella unashamed in 18th-century England, a time and place in which umbrellas were strictly taboo. In the minds of many Brits, umbrella usage was symptomatic of a weakness of character, particularly among men. Few people ever dared to be seen with such a detestable, effeminate contraption. To carry an umbrella when it rained was to incur public ridicule. 
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Umbrellas on the streets of Paris, in this 1803 painting by Louis-Léopold Boilly. (Photo: Public Domain)
Jonas Hanway, always stubborn, paid little attention to the social stigma. An eccentric man, he was no stranger to controversy—he fervently opposed the introduction of tea into England, at one point penning an “Essay Upon Tea and Its Pernicious Consequences” (1756). He published four books on the development of British trade in the Caspian Sea, leading 20th-century scholar Charles Wilson to call him “one of the most indefatigable and splendid bores of English history.” 
Over the years, Hanway and his umbrella fell victim to all sorts of abuse from Brits he passed on the sidewalk. The most pernicious abuse came from an unlikely source: coach drivers. In England at the time, hansom cabs (two-wheeled, horse-drawn carriages) and sedan chairs were the primary modes of transportation. Business boomed especially on rainy days, as both hansom cabs and sedan chairs came equipped with small canopies that kept passengers dry. When it rained, Londoners flocked to these coaches, so Hanway’s umbrella represented a threat to business.
Fearing an interruption in their personal incomes, many hansom cab drivers and sedan chair carriers grew violent toward Hanway. According to the British history magazine Look and Learn, when they saw him walking by, they often “pelted him with rubbish.” On one occasion, a hansom cab driver even tried to run Hanway over with his coach. Hanway reacted by using his umbrella to “give the man a good thrashing.”
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Jonas Hanway, Esquire, in 1781. (Photo: Wellcome Images, London/CC BY 4.0)
The coach drivers, of course, were right to be afraid. With Hanway paving the way, the number of people who owned an umbrella crept upward across England. One historian observed that, soon after Hanway’s taboo-busting umbrella use, “in many of the large towns of the Empire, a memory [was] preserved of the courageous citizen who first carried an umbrella.” Almost every English town, in other words, had its own Hanway.
By Hanway’s death in 1786, umbrella usage was on the rise across England. On rainy days, more and more people could be found traversing their cities and towns with umbrellas held proudly above their heads. As a symbol of the changing social norms, people were also becoming less self-conscious about owning umbrellas.
Three months after Hanway died, much to the dismay of London’s coach drivers, an advertisement for umbrellas appeared in the London Gazette. “Gatward’s new invented Umbrella Manufactory,” it read, offered an umbrella capable of being “opened and shut with the greatest ease and facility” by means of an innovative “spring lock pillar.”
The rain-repelling revolution had begun, with the dearly departed Hanway as its pioneer. Not all heroes wear capes, but some carry umbrellas.
Mycroft's reaction to any insults or threats if it had been him instead of Jonas (though he would also give a harasser a sound thrashing as Jonas did with his umbrella!):
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Art by sugishi125
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mariacallous · 1 year
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On the first day of Russia’s all-out war against Ukraine, German Finance Minister Christian Lindner met with then-Ukrainian ambassador to Germany Andriy Melnyk. As Melnyk later recounted, Lindner didn’t simply decline to supply Ukraine with weapons or disconnect Russia from the SWIFT payment system, as Ukraine had a “few hours left” of its sovereignty. It became clear he was preparing to discuss the future of a Russian-occupied Ukraine with the puppet government that would be installed by the Kremlin. This reflected a general attitude: The West at the time thought it would be easier if Ukraine simply surrendered.
An uncomfortable truth about Russia’s genocidal war against Ukraine, so plainly obvious that it’s usually overlooked, is that it became possible not only because it was conceived and carried out by the aggressor but also because it was allowed by bystanders. The biggest blow to democracy on a global scale was not the war itself but the fact that—despite all “never again” claims—European and Western countries in general agreed and accepted beforehand that another European nation might be deprived of its sovereignty, freedom, and independent institutions, and it might find itself militarily occupied. (If this isn’t how they felt, then they wouldn’t have evacuated their embassies in Kyiv.)
So far, the West has been having a good war in Ukraine—above all, because its present course still allows the West to behave as if the war is not its own. The West’s political discourse, rationalized in the ivory tower language of non-escalation and nonprovocation, is still basically about how best to ensure that exposure to the continued risk of military aggression and death is restricted to Ukrainians. In a basic sense, the West has always been afraid of a Ukrainian victory.
There are three central reasons for that fear. The first is the West’s profound non-revolutionism. Ukraine is now bearing an unthinkable price for the fall of the Berlin Wall and the so-called Friedliche Revolution (or Peaceful Revolution) of 1989 that was so much celebrated in Germany. It was famously called Die Nachholende Revolution, the “catch-up revolution,” by the de facto German state philosopher Jürgen Habermas—a term that symptomatically reveals the basic Western understanding of Eastern Europe’s role after the collapse of the communist bloc. The only task the region was assigned was simply catching-up with the West regardless of its actual historical experience. The ongoing war shows that this catch-up revolution became a catch-up regression into complacency, mirroring the general trajectory of the West after the proclaimed “end of history.”
Ukraine’s victory over Russia would indeed mean a genuine revolution for the West. It would require, foremost from Europe, a radical transformation. Eventual European Union and NATO enlargement are necessary—but only what lies on the surface. That is the same reason why the European Union couldn’t accept the political outcomes of Ukraine’s Euromaidan revolution of 2014. As a political marketplace—or agora, in ancient Greek—reclaimed by its citizens, the Euromaidan revolution dragged Europe back to its roots of democracy, justice, anti-oligarchy, and freedom. In its revolutionary nature, Euromaidan was so fundamentally European that it turned out to be too European for today’s EU. Ukraine appeared to be a test that Europe failed to pass. But Euromaidan is not just a story of an exciting revolutionary past; it has allowed Ukraine to survive and effectively resist Russia’s atrocious war of aggression today.
In reality, Ukraine has experienced three Euromaidans—all different but driven by the same political intention. The first one in 2014 was a revolutionary Euromaidan, which successfully opposed an authoritarian bloody assault on society. The second one in 2019 was an electoral Euromaidan, which elevated to the presidency a person capable of maintaining the state during an existentially critical moment. And the third one was a war Euromaidan, when the whole country became one armed revolution opposing Russia’s military invasion in February 2022. The juxtaposition of the first and the last is pivotal—in 2014, the Euromaidan social movement was against an internal oppressor, the state repressive apparatus seized by a criminal autocrat; in 2022, the Euromaidan movement unified with the state to resist an external military oppressor. The history of the Euromaidan thus demonstrates that revolutions can improve the state in a progressive direction, away from authoritarianism—indeed, this is exactly why Russia launched a war of annihilation against the country.
The second reason the West cannot come to terms with a Ukrainian victory over Russia is because of its own colonial legacy and its current post-colonial position. The West has effectively shifted its experience with colonialism to the past and maintains a blind eye toward colonial experiences in other parts of the European continent. This is motivated in part by a bad conscience as well as the West’s own self-recognition and direct involvement in these ongoing experiences of oppression. Europe’s East is invisible in the Western post-colonial discourse precisely because it is so central.
Long regarded as a periphery between Western and Russian metropoles, Eastern Europe has struggled with Russian imperialism for decades at the very least—and in some cases even centuries. But after World War II, the West’s dominant approach toward Eastern Europe was best expressed through Germany’s misnomer Ostpolitik, in which the actual East was avoided to actively deal with imperial powers in Moscow. And when the EU established its Eastern European policy, called the Eastern Partnership, it was described as a policy toward outlying “neighborhoods.” The countries of Europe’s post-Soviet East were assigned a functional role of borderlands or buffer zones that provided huge benefits for the EU in terms of various supplies and resources while exposing those states to Russian revanchism. Despite intending to overcome the historical division of Europe and political isolation of its East, the EU indulged in its repressed colonial mindset and separated itself from the so-called under-civilized, second-hand Eastern Europe.
But Europe is a strange thing—its center lies in its East, exactly where the fate of the whole continent and much beyond is currently being decided on the battlefield. The unwillingness of former Western metropoles, Berlin and Paris in particular, to recognize and accept the full-fledged agency of post-Soviet European countries, determined by a usual post-colonial habit, actually explains constant foot-dragging and weapons delivery delays to Ukraine. A central issue here is the right to violence and who deserves it, which has always been decisive for the history of colonialism. From a hegemonic viewpoint, it is the colonized who are not supposed to be equipped to apply violence—much less to win. It is only the colonizers who are allowed to fully possess and dispose of the right to violence at their own discretion.
A third reason why the West fears what Ukraine’s victory would mean has to do with time and the war itself. The “never again” slogan, the EU’s common ideological denominator, has become a self-fulfilling prophecy in a perverted sense. Indeed, if one literally accepts the principle that “it should never happen again,” then war is thought of as impossible simply because it’s unimaginable in spite of realities on the ground. The EU has fetishized the idea of peace to the extent that it completely repressed the realities of war—only to be totally unprepared when the repressed came back.
It was exactly that moment of unreadiness that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz famously called a Zeitenwende—an epochal shift, literally a turn of times. In truth, especially in the German case, the proclamation of a turning point hides an intention toward its opposite—that things would be better if they remained as they were. Its real political name is rather a Zeitverschwendung, a waste of time, as it is Ukraine that is now buying time for the West, paying an immense price every day to do so. What characterizes the West’s constant belatedness and inability to act is a time out of joint, to quote William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. It’s a profoundly wicked logic that requires another mass grave to trigger the next set of sanctions against an aggressor or deliver a minimal portion of arms to a country in dire need.
There has been so much talk in the EU over the last seven decades of how Europe relates to its history and learned its lessons from the past. But what is history if not the knowledge of time and what time means, the knowledge of how to act in time? If you talk so much about history but at the same time are always too late in your actions, perhaps there is something wrong with the story you present about yourself. Zeitenwende is actually a form of political self-deception that shows how hard it is for the West to really be contemporary, to keep pace with the demands of the present.
A proper understanding of time and place are the basic requirements for any appropriate political action. Violent events like revolutions or wars especially depend on time—if one doesn’t act when needed, then the situation only deteriorates and becomes more violent. As Europe, unfortunately, is already at war, the West will inevitably have to act more decisively and directly. At the moment, it prefers to think the war will drag on in its present form, where there are no boots on the ground from other Western nations. But the actual choice the West is currently confronted with is either to apply all the military, political, and economic means it has without delay to defeat Russian aggressors and restore Ukraine’s borders or to intervene when that aggression has proliferated elsewhere and Eastern Europe has become a battlefield again.
It’s a question of time. And it’s indeed a Hamletian choice.
The time is out of joint/O cursed spite!
That ever I was born to set it right!
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