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#for those who are called according to his purpose
lovelifecare · 3 months
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இன்றைய வசனம் [09/01/2024] | Today Bible Verse | Tamil Bible Verse
உங்கள் மேல் அன்பு வைத்தவர்கள் உங்களை கைவிடலாம். கர்த்தர் உங்களை ஒருபோதும் கைவிடமாட்டார்.
People who loved you may abandon you. The Lord will never forsake you.
ரோமர் 8:28 Romans 8:28
அவருடைய தீர்மானத்தின்படி அழைக்கப்பட்டவர்களாய் தேவனிடத்தில் அன்புகூருகிறவர்களுக்குச் சகலமும் நன்மைக்கு ஏதுவாக நடக்கிறதென்று அறிந்திருக்கிறோம்.
என் அன்பு சகோதர சகோதரிகளே, ஒருவேளை காரியங்கள் தீமையாக தெரிந்தாலும், தேவனிடத்தில் அன்புகூருகிறவர்களுக்கு,அது நன்மைக்கு ஏதுவாக நடக்கிறது. இன்றைய நாட்களிலும் கொரோனா வைரஸ் உலகம் முழுவதும் பாதிப்பை உண்டாக்கினாலும் கர்த்தர் ராஜரீகம் பண்ணுகிறார். தேவன் எல்லாவற்றையும் நன்மையாக மாறப்பண்ணுவராக!
We Know That In All Things God Works For The Good Of Those Who Love Him, Who Have Been Called According To His Purpose.
My dear brothers and sisters, even though things may seem bad, they work out for good to those who love God. Even today, even though the corona virus is affecting the whole world, the Lord reigns. God is the one who changes everything for good!
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berzahoes · 4 months
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manifestation, baby! | tom blyth
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summary: fans find out tom’s girlfriend has an old youtube channel where she reviewed the ballad of songbirds and snakes (and she definitely manifested her life)
an: the way i thought about this idea and quickly wrote it down so i didn’t forget it. i used to have an app that made those fake tweets but i’m just tired to make fake profiles 😭 maybe i’ll change it later idk
for the purpose of this imagine, let’s pretend tbosas book was published between 2017-2019
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liked by zeglerslove, 444_bri and 35,377 others
tomblythxsnow apparently tom’s girlfriend has an old youtube channel where she reviews books and she reviewed the ballad of songbirds and snakes and she literally manifested her future 😭
lucymygf WHATTT WHATS HER CHANNEL NAME
tomblythxsnow it’s yn’s book corner. she hasn’t posted since 2019 ngl i need her to review a little life because that book destroyed me
nat76_ omg i used to watch her videos!! i’m still subscribed to her 😭 i remember only buying and reading the books she liked because i wanted to be her so bad
j4ckaszlol “if someone ever makes a movie adaptation of this book and casts someone attractive to play snow then i am sorry for the person i become” REALLLLL
graybairdsmockingjay dude the part where she said “i’m calling it now whoever plays young snow will be my boyfriend. movie studios always cast someone attractive as the younger version of a character!” MY JAW DROPPED SHE NEEDS TO TELL ME HER WAYS
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“guess what rachel just sent me.” you heard tom say when he arrived to your shared apartment.
“wedding invitations?!” you gasped as you almost stood up from the sofa since you were watching reruns of criminal minds, but tom stopped you.
“no, it’s better!” tom sat beside you and showed you his phone. “why didn’t you tell me you had a youtube channel?” on his phone screen was your review of the ballad of songbirds and snakes, which had become a very popular video over the past couple of days.
you hid your face with a pillow and groaned. “don’t remind me. i just wanted to talk about my books and my family didn’t care. don’t watch it! it’s embarrassing!”
“i think it’s cute. aw look, your dog made a cameo!” he pointed at your old dog you used to have that walked into the frame.
“indi! no, come sit right here. oh . . . and she’s walking away. okay, anyways.” your younger self said in the video
“indi? why Indi?” tom asked you even though you were still hiding from embarrassment.
“after indiana jones. my dad and i loved those movies and he gifted me indi as a birthday present.” you confessed.
“love, don’t be embarrassed. i think it’s cute that you manifested your life according to the comments on instagram,” tom paused the video then cuddled up to you. “i won’t watch it if you don’t want me to.”
“it’s fine, i just didn’t think anyone would find it. we can watch it together.” you uncovered yourself and sat down properly to watch the video with tom. before he pressed the play button and together you watch your younger self review the book.
“i’ve read all the hunger games books at least four times and this one did not disappoint. but i do hope whoever ends up being cast as young snow is someone hot. i’m sorry it’s the rules! and they will be my boyfriend, i’m calling dibs.”
tom smirked at you. “if only younger you could see you now.”
“she would definitely think ‘wow, how did we pull this beautiful man?’ then be confused as to why the hunger games and fnaf is trending in 2023.”
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liked by tomblyth, rachelzegler and 1,377,389 others
ynlovesbooks told ya. love you tomblyth ❤️
rachelzegler she is THAT girl
ynlovesbooks no u
everdeenx12 bestie he’s EVIL
ynlovesbooks he’s a walking red flag but my favorite color is red 😍
chamaletproblems pls tell me how you did this
ynlovesbooks i figured out who they were casting and kept him hostage until he agreed to be my bf
tomblyth true
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jymwahuwu · 4 months
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Food for thought, High-cloud Quintet era:
Jing Yuan, Dan Feng and Yingxing helping their innocent Darling (same darling bc its fun!) with "Stamina and Flexibility" training fwhile (and esp when) they have darling assist them in their work after a certain Sword Champion turned their request to be a disciple down for the nth time.
To make it more fun, there is no fixed schedule plan as in order to be a warrior, one must always be prepared to deal with unexpected situations after all:
- Dodging random and unexpected tendrils made of water by a certain high elder to test ones reflexes.
-Maintaining their concentration when meditating whilst being strapped down on a... "concentration training" machine made by a certain blade smith.
-Maintaining concentration and ability to strategize whilst being folded into different poses during a match of star chess with a languid Lieutenant.
For example, whilst also having to assist them while they work. They are busy people, you can't expect them to take time off their schedule to dedicate it to training you alone, would you?
-one of the peeps who hunts the comments section
This is so delicious, I immediately thought of what that would be like… 😌🫶
-CW: yandere, abuse of trust, overstimulation, sex machine
You are so naive and innocent... You are all focused on how to improve your strength and contribution, and you don't realize that there is something wrong with their "training"…
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Dan Feng:
Imbibitor Lunae has the ability to manipulate water, weave rain and dew, create storms, and even split seawater, so training with water is really something you can expect. You just didn't expect…High Elder's training to be so…random. From HSR's description, we can know that Vidyadhara possesses a technology called cloudhymn magic, which can make them almost completely invisible and appear quietly around people. So… you were attacked completely randomly.
The water occasionally sprays onto your underwear, wetly revealing the shape of your sexual organs inside. You squirmed uncomfortably and closed your legs to avoid others noticing that water was dripping between your legs for no reason… You didn't want to be thought of as a weirdo who was in heat anytime and anywhere…
Dan Feng didn't even come to you on purpose. He showed no emotion when he did this. The High Elder sometimes wiggles his fingertips a little and your underwear is soaked, and then he goes to have lunch and deal with the daily affairs of Vidyadhara. Sometimes, your chest will also get wet, causing two puddles of water on the clothes on your chest. It's so embarrassing! You have to cross your arms over your chest to cover it up and then go change.
But…the "training" that requires taking off clothes is different. Dan Feng asks you to remain still. For an hour continuously, the warm water sprays on your private parts, the effect is like masturbation in the shower… You have to resist moving. This is a challenge of endurance and willpower…
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Yingxing:
This talented weapon forger has gained a good reputation most of the time… Many people have commented that he is arrogant, but Yingxing does have the qualifications of "arrogance".
You trust Yingxing. He is so sweet and builds those weapons for you for free. He put decorations on the weapons he gave you and engraved them with beautiful patterns that suit you.
So… Even though Yingxing gave you that weird "concentration training" machine, you accepted it. That machine is automated…or it operates according to the program created by Yingxing, with more than ten modes.
In the normal mode, you only need to sit on the dildo of the machine (what Yingxing did not tell you is that the shape of the dildo is according to his…), and be penetrated deeply and trembled at the frequency of thrusting. This machine always seeks out your sensitive spots and stimulates them long-lasting and thoroughly. In full mode, your hands and legs are immobilized, and your nipples are caressed and rubbed for constant overstimulation.
Yingxing asks for your feedback and improves the machine. Maybe you should consider some suggestions…
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Jing Yuan:
Jing Yuan coaxes you - this is about concentration and strategic skills training. If you can't strategize without interruption, you will suffer defeat in combat. He's just doing it for your own good. This…sounds reasonable?
At least once a day, you have to play chess with Jing Yuan, but the distraction is that you have to sit on his cock and fiddle with the chess pieces. He unbuttoned his pants and took out his fat cock, which was erect. He held his chin, narrowed his eyes and smiled, urging you to sit up. It took you a lot of courage to sit on it for the first time, and the unfamiliar cock almost split you open. So…thick and long. You moaned softly with every inch he thrust in, and his thumb rubbed your private parts to help lubricate you. Sitting completely on it is a terrifying experience. Pleasure bewilders and corrupts your brain…
Maybe this is what Jing Yuan meant by "training"? About whether you can focus on strategizing.
Of course you are… unable to focus. It collapsed in a few steps. Your fingertips tremble as you place the chess pieces. The brain cannot think about the next strategy and route…
After a few months, you get better at it, a little bit, but every time you get close to reaching "victory," you're screaming and bouncing on the general's cock, missing the chance of "victory" in orgasm...
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edenesth · 3 months
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The Way to His Heart [11]
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Pairing: general!Seonghwa x wife!reader
AU: arranged marriage au (Joseon era)
Word Count: 3.7k
Trigger Warnings: gore, implied mutilation
Summary: Life has been hell ever since your mother's passing many years ago. Despite being from a prominent family, you've never received the privileges associated with it. It only got worse with the arrival of your stepmother and her daughters. When the intimidating General Park was in search of a wife, your father seized the opportunity to dispose of you, simultaneously securing a connection with the powerful general—killing two birds with one stone.
Part 10 | Fic Masterlist | Part 12
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Hearing the cessation of all the screams, one of the royal guards gathered the courage to enter the chamber and check on Seonghwa, "Sir, are you done?"
Upon entering, he had yet to witness the state in which the former minister was left. The general stood before his victim, actively wiping all the blood off his hands with a towel prepared beforehand, "It's done. Has my assistant arrived to pick me up?"
"Yes, sir. Assistant Choi is waiting with your carriage by the entrance. If I remember correctly, he mentioned Lady Park helped prepare dinner today." A smile instantly graced your husband's face at the mere mention of you.
"Thank you, soldier. Bring in the rest and clean up the mess," He instructed, finally stepping away from the seat in the middle of the room, revealing the sight of your father slumped in the chair, both of his arms missing, blood gushing out from his shoulders, "Get him to a physician before banishing him. No need to treat him extensively; heal him just enough to keep him alive."
Freezing, the guard nodded quickly, "Y-yes, sir! We will not let you down!" His round eyes fixated on the two mutilated limbs on the ground in the middle of the puddle of crimson liquid.
The general was truly not someone to be underestimated, that was evident to the royal guards who filed in later on to clean up the bloody mess. They now understood why Seonghwa was so feared among those who had worked with him or witnessed his cold-blooded nature firsthand.
However, rather than instilling pure terror, your husband garnered more respect from them. He had gone to great lengths just to avenge his beloved wife. This demonstrated that the man still possessed a heart after all and that his affection for Lady Park was undeniable. He has proven that he could love just as fiercely as he hated.
Not a single member of the palace staff harboured even a hint of pity for the former Minister of Military Affairs as they dealt with his mangled body according to instructions. Any citizen with access to news was aware of all the cruel acts the old man had committed against his own daughter and first wife. It was safe to say that witnessing him in this state brought ample satisfaction not only to the general but to others as well.
"Sir, there's a bit of blood here."
The assistant extended his handkerchief, ensuring his master was free from any signs of bloodshed as they returned home. The last thing they all needed was for you to catch on to any of the events that occurred today; you should only focus on happiness and never spare another thought for your so-called family from now onwards.
"Thank you, Jongho," The general responded, taking the piece of fabric to remove the small bloodstain on his neck, "Keep me posted on where they banished that clown afterwards. It would be nice to check in on him once in a while, for entertainment purposes."
"Yes, sir."
Upon entering the estate, he was surprised not to find you waiting for him by the entrance, as was your usual routine when he returned from work. Only the head maid and a few servants stood there, ready to greet him, "Welcome home, master. We hope you had a good day at work." They said with a deep bow.
Seonghwa frowned, "Where's the mistress?" The elderly woman replied, "Mistress is currently at the main hall having a chat with Royal Secretary Choi while they were awaiting your return."
That immediately had the general rushing towards the hall. He didn't like the thought of you alone with... yet another handsome man. He had finally grown accustomed to having Yunho around the estate whenever he was at work, only because the two of you rarely interacted; he knew that thanks to daily reports from Eunsook. Now, jealousy was flooding his veins again.
What if you found San more attractive?
"Yes, I fully understand your concern. My sister faces similar issues," The royal secretary's voice carried from outside the hall, and then your softer response followed, "Thank you so much for your help, San. It means a lot to me."
They're already on a first-name basis?
"Help? With what?" He queried, abruptly pulling you and the secretary from your conversation. Both of you looked up at him, and you blinked and stammered nervously, quickly rising from your seat, "Oh, Seonghwa! You're home! It's nothing, we were just having a casual conversation while waiting for you."
Sensing your unease, San chuckled and concurred, "Yes, it was nothing important. It's good that you're back; I've come to deliver the minutes of today's assembly to you, as per His Majesty's orders."
"Please don't let me interrupt; I'll be waiting for you at the dining hall," You remarked to your husband, offering a nod of gratitude to the secretary, "It was nice talking to you, Royal Secretary Choi," The man respectfully bowed his head, "And you, Lady Park."
The general watched the interaction between you two with unmistakable envy, causing San to suppress a snicker into his fist, "Without further ado, general, let's proceed so that you can join your wife for dinner as soon as possible," Seonghwa nodded, feigning nonchalance, "Of course."
As the secretary continued to share the main details discussed during the assembly, he noticed the general's slight distraction. Wrapping up the debrief, he decided to ease your husband's thoughts by divulging the nature of your earlier conversation.
"Listen, before you came back, Lady Park and I were just talking about her concerns regarding being a better wife. Given that my elder sister, who is married, shares similar worries, I was merely offering some insights that might be helpful. So, don't stress over it too much, okay? I assure you, you're the only one on her mind."
Learning that you were only seeking to improve yourself for him, Seonghwa's heart melted immediately. Regret washed over him for entertaining the notion that you might find his colleague more appealing, and a slight embarrassment crept in, "I, uhh... it's not like I was worried about that or anything... but thank you, San. If that's all for today, Jongho will escort you out."
The secretary held back his knowing smile as they bid each other farewell before the general made his way to the dining hall. His heart pounded with excitement at the thought of being with you again.
Dinner went by as usual, though this time, you were brimming with enthusiasm as you shared how you spent the day learning to prepare his favourite dishes from the kitchen staff. You even mentioned the surprising discovery that you might have developed a love for cooking. He ate more than usual, savouring the fact that the meal was made just for him, and found it difficult to take his eyes off of you throughout the night.
He had once considered happiness to be a frivolous notion, something only fools wished for. He never anticipated being the one to experience it. Now that he had, your husband was determined not to lose this newfound feeling.
With your family matters now resolved, the only thing remaining was to give you the grand wedding you truly deserved. From then on, the plan was to enjoy a lifetime of this happiness together. Watching you munching away with joy, he couldn't resist reaching over to affectionately wipe the corner of your lips. At that moment, he realised that this was all he needed.
After the meal, he walked you back to the House of Lotus, hand in hand as usual. Upon reaching the entrance, you smiled up at him, "Have a good night, Seonghwa."
However, before you could turn and leave, he swiftly cupped your face, "Wait, before you go..." Your heart quickened as he leaned in, whispering, "Just one kiss, my love."
Almost instinctively, your eyes fluttered closed as soon as his lips met yours in a tender kiss. The warmth spread through your insides as he wrapped his arms around your frame, pulling you closer and deepening the kiss by angling his head.
Feeling the sensation of his lips pressing against yours, again and again, you finally understood why couples enjoyed kissing. It was hard to put into words, but being so close to him felt pleasant, and your husband had a unique way of making you feel beautiful with his touches, even when you doubted it yourself. There was an almost addictive quality to it, making you feel like the luckiest woman in the world to be desired by the great General Park.
Perhaps I've found it... my happiness.
After breaking the kiss for a breath, he leaned his forehead against yours, a smile adorning his face as he looked down at you lovingly. In silence, the two of you remained in each other's arms, basking in the moment, reluctant to part.
Unfortunately, the moment was cut short as your assigned group of servants approached, "Oh, pardon us for the intrusion, master and mistress! We came to assist in preparing the mistress for bed. May we proceed, master? Or, if you wish to stay with the mistress, we could also make arrangements for both of you for the night in the House of Lotus."
His heart raced as he witnessed the faint blush on your cheeks in response to the maid's suggestion. Chuckling, he gently shook his head and placed a kiss on your forehead, "No, the mistress needs her rest. Perhaps another time. Go on ahead then; she will join you soon."
"Yes, master, as you wish."
The servants entered your quarters to prepare your bath while you exchanged your goodnight. Caressing your cheeks with his thumbs, he couldn't resist leaning in for a final, lingering kiss on your soft lips, "Goodnight, my love. I'll see you tomorrow."
As you made your way to your room, he felt a swell of affection watching you turn for one last wave before disappearing inside. He missed you already, and as much as he would have loved to hold you close all night, he knew that waiting until your proper wedding night to share the same bed was the right decision. For now, this was more than enough. After all, he had the rest of his life to spend with you.
"Thank goodness the ointment has been remarkably effective. I don't think you need to harbour any insecurities about your appearance anymore. Lady Park, you look beautiful." said Physician Jung as he arrived to assess the condition of your skin. Having you apply the medicine he prepared for some time, he recognised that his work here would soon be done.
Eunsook couldn't contain the grin on her face at the slight pink dusting your cheeks from the doctor's compliment, suddenly relieved that her master was not around. Lord knows how unamused he would have been to hear any of that or see your reaction.
"Yes, thank you, Yunho. She's always been ravishing with or without your ointment. I think your job here is done; it's my turn to enhance this beauty. Head over to the general's study for your pay if that's all," The doctor couldn't resist rolling his eyes at the dressmaker's dramatic entrance, "It's nice to see you too, Hongjoong."
With a dismissive wave, he shrugged off the sarcastic greeting from his tall friend, saying, "I'll catch up with you soon; I have work to do." Left with no other choice, Yunho offered one final bow to you before leaving your room with a maid escorting him out.
Closing the distance between you, the dressmaker swiftly retrieved the new hanbok he had made specifically for the special occasion today, declaring, "Now, who is ready to outshine all the princesses in the palace? It's you, Lady Park!"
"Outshine the princesses? I d-don't think that's a good idea—"
He interrupted you before you could finish your protest, "Nonsense! I promised General Park to make you the most beautiful woman in all of Joseon." With a small giggle, you sighed in defeat and allowed him to work his magic with the assistance of the head maid as they coordinated your appearance for your visit to the palace.
Today marked the day you and Seonghwa were meeting the King and Queen to discuss the details of your wedding ceremony in-depth, as well as allowing the royal couple to finally meet you after having heard so much about you. Even without having seen you, they already adored you from the stories your husband had shared. Not to mention, their hearts ached, especially after learning about your nightmarish childhood.
Seated at the vanity table, you gazed at your reflection in amazement as Eunsook worked on your hair and makeup, with Hongjoong providing expert advice and guidance. Just as the elderly woman was about to conceal the remaining faint scars on your face as she had always done, the dressmaker intervened, "No, wait. Leave the one on her forehead as it is; I have an idea."
With his extensive knowledge of fashion and beauty, he had always been intrigued by the Chinese makeup style, which incorporated temporary tattoos. Specifically, he was drawn to the idea of a small flower design painted onto women's foreheads.
Rather than covering your marks, he opted to transform them into an accessory that would improve your overall looks. With this distinctive look, you were bound to capture attention from all directions, not that your beauty didn't already achieve that. Now, you would stand out wherever you went, even within the palace grounds where princesses and royal concubines were always impeccably dressed.
Waiting by the entrance, Seonghwa turned when he recognised the sound of your dainty footsteps approaching. He didn't miss his assistant's awestruck expression, taking in your appearance from behind him, "Finally, Hongjoong's taken way too long..."
As you stepped into full view, his words trailed off, and his gaze fixed on you with a mix of astonishment and sheer admiration. His breath caught in his throat, and for a moment, he couldn't find the words to express what he felt. You had always been beautiful in his eyes, but his friend had truly outdone himself this time.
The most significant difference that caught the general's attention was the little red flower on your forehead, right between your eyes. That delicate design elegantly covered one of the scars you bore from your past. It was a stroke of genius from the dressmaker, turning a mark of pain into a unique and striking accessory that enhanced your natural beauty.
Your husband approached you, his eyes never leaving yours. Finally finding his voice, he whispered, "You look breathtaking, my love," before gently reaching up to trace the edge of the flower on your forehead, his touch soft and filled with so much love, "Hongjoong, you've done wonders."
The dressmaker grinned proudly and nodded in agreement, "I know, I always do."
Throughout the journey to the palace, the general found it hard to divert his gaze from you, just as you were captivated by the passing scenery outside. The roads to the palace differed from the usual routes leading to town, explaining your intrigue. As he admired your beautiful face, an unexpected desire surged within him to take you back home and shield you from others' eyes. A sudden uncertainty about wanting anyone else to see you overcame him. A selfish impulse urged him to keep you all to himself.
Before he could entertain the impulsive idea of turning the carriage around, Jongho had already announced their arrival. This time, Eunsook didn't bother to stand by and assist you down, instead waiting expectantly as the general smoothly helped you in one swift movement, determined to keep you close.
Having been here more than enough, Seonghwa knew this place might appear beautiful on the inside but could be very dangerous at the same time. People here might seem nice but rarely could be trusted, particularly the women. Well aware of this, he hesitated to let you wander off alone, despite your status as his wife. You were easily recognisable as Lady Park from a distance, anyone would have to be insane to dare mess with you.
Even so, he had no intention of leaving your side for even a moment. Palace servants passing by bowed deeply at both of you, and you did your best to maintain the poise of a noblewoman as practised with the head maid. The last thing you wanted was to make your husband look bad in here.
As you both approached the hall for the meeting with His and Her Majesty, the royal secretary rushed out to intercept the two of you. Almost as if your husband had jinxed it, San exclaimed, "There you are, General Park! We have a bit of a situation right now. Your immediate presence is required at an emergency meeting."
"But my wife—"
Finally realising you were present, the secretary bowed, "Oh, right, Lady Park! We're all aware you're here to discuss your wedding arrangements, but this really cannot wait. Even His Majesty is currently in this meeting expecting you. Would it be alright if we have your wife waiting by the cherry blossom garden? We'll have the servants prepare her some refreshments."
As much as Seonghwa detested the sudden change of plans, he acknowledged that he was left with no choice upon sensing the urgency in San's demeanour. With a nod of defeat, he agreed, "Okay, fine. Eunsook, please stay by the mistress' side at all times."
She nodded with a bow, "Of course, master."
Turning to you with a regretful frown etched on his brows, he said, "I'm sorry for having to leave you alone, my love. I'll come back to you as quickly as I can, I promise."
You shook your head with an understanding smile, "Don't worry about me, Seonghwa. I'll be fine. Your work is more important. Now hurry and go. Don't make His Majesty wait." Sighing lightly, he pecked you on the head before rushing off with the royal secretary.
"Lady Park, please come with us. We will guide you to the cherry blossom garden."
A team of palace maids appeared before you, showing you as much respect as they would towards royalty. Your status and reputation were well-known nationwide; you were favoured not only by your husband but also by the King and Queen themselves. No one would dare to disrespect you for fear of dire consequences.
Their dedication was evident in the top-tier hospitality as they led you to the enchanting garden, unlike anything you had ever seen. After thanking them politely, they prepared a seat for you in one of the pavilions within the vast garden, serving a tray of tea and some sophisticated-looking snacks.
Boredom eventually set in, and you glanced at one of the palace maids standing ready by the pavilion for any orders you might have for her, "Excuse me, would it be okay for me to take a walk around the garden?"
"Oh, certainly, Lady Park! Feel free to explore the garden as you please. Would you like any of us to accompany you?" Smiling and glancing at Eunsook, you declined, "No, thank you. We'll manage on our own. We won't be gone too long; you have my word."
"Thank you, Lady Park. Your assurance is appreciated; we'll await your return here." They bowed deeply as you and the head maid began your leisurely stroll.
As you wandered through the picturesque garden, marvelling at the vibrant colours of the flowers, you inadvertently caught the eye of a stranger who happened to be nearby. Your beauty, accentuated by the mark on your forehead, captivated the attention of this mysterious figure. What intrigued him even more was the unmistakable childlike innocence reflected in your eyes.
From a distance, he observed you with awe. The way you carried yourself, the genuine delight on your face as you admired the flowers and scenery—it all conveyed a sense of authenticity. Unlike anyone he had encountered, you seemed untouched by pretentiousness or spoiled airs.
Driven by an unexplainable urge to get closer, the stranger slowly made his way towards you, navigating through the enchanting garden. His curiosity was piqued, and he couldn't resist the desire to learn more about the intriguing woman who had captured his attention.
Unaware of the approaching figure as you immersed yourself in the beauty of the flowers, a clearing of the throat behind you signalled his presence. Eunsook, recognising the newcomer, widened her eyes and began to bow, but he gestured for her to remain silent with a finger against his lips and a subtle shake of his head.
Interrupting the tranquillity, the unexpected deep voice spoke, "It's beautiful, isn't it? Do you know what cherry blossoms symbolise?"
Startled, you turned to find a handsome man dressed elegantly, smiling down at you. After a moment of surprise, you nodded, "I do. I've read that they symbolise purity and beauty."
The man acknowledged, "That's right, much like you, my lady."
Concern flickered in the head maid's eyes, realising that the stranger might be unaware of your identity and possibly attempting to make a romantic gesture. Before matters could escalate, she decided to intervene, "Allow me to express our deepest respect, Your Highness. This is Lady Park, the esteemed wife of General Park. Mistress, may I present to you Prince Yeosang."
« Preview of Part 12 »
Seonghwa's eyes widened as they approached the War and Strategy Department building, where soldiers were marching about hastily, "Wait a minute, don't tell me—"
The royal secretary had no time to explain as he pulled the general into the meeting room where all military officials were seated and awaiting anxiously. The King, positioned in the middle of the room, sighed deeply upon noticing your husband's arrival.
"You're here, General Park. Is your wife also in the palace?" His Majesty asked, rubbing his head to alleviate an oncoming headache.
Seonghwa nodded in confirmation and inquired, "Yes, she is. She's waiting by the cherry blossom garden as we speak. Now, tell me. What is it? What has happened?"
With regret in his eyes, the King grimaced, "I'm so sorry, my boy. It seems your wedding will have to wait. Relations with the neighbouring nation, Ruhon, have not been very good lately. I fear war is inevitable this time, and... we need you."
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Just wanted to make it clear that Ruhon is a fictional country. I've thought about it and decided it's probably best not to use real places for fear of offending anyone.
As always, thank you for reading and let me know your thoughts! <3
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dailyadventureprompts · 8 months
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Monsters Reimagined: Bandits
As a game of heroic fantasy that centers so primarily on combat, D&D  is more often than not a game about righteous violence, which is why I spend so much time thinking about the targets of that violence. Every piece of media made by humans is a thing created from conscious or unconscious design, it’s saying something whether or not its creators intended it to do so. 
Tolkien made his characters peaceloving and pastoral, and coded his embodiment of evil as powerhungry, warlike, and industrial. When d&d directly cribbed from Tolkien's work it purposely changed those enemies to be primitive tribespeople who were resentful of the riches the “civilized” races possessed. Was this intentional? None can say, but as a text d&d says something decidedly different than Tolkien. 
That's why today I want to talk about bandits, the historical concept of being an “outlaw”, and how media uses crime to “un-person” certain classes of people in order to give heroes a target to beat up. 
Tldr: despite presenting bandits as a generic threat, most d&d scenarios never go into detail about what causes bandits to exist, merely presuming the existence of outlaws up to no good that the heroes should feel no qualms about slaughtering. If your story is going to stand up to the scrutiny of your players however, you need to be aware of WHY these individuals have been driven to banditry, rather than defaulting to “they broke the law so they deserve what’s coming to them.”
I got to thinking about writing this post when playing a modded version of fallout 4, an npc offhndedly mentioned to me that raiders (the postapoc bandit rebrand) were too lazy to do any farming and it was good that I’d offed them by the dozens so that they wouldn’t make trouble for those that did. 
That gave me pause, fallout takes place in an irradiated wasteland where folks struggle to survive but this mod was specifically about rebuilding infrastructure like farms and ensuring people had enough to get by. Lack of resources to go around was a specific justification for why raiders existed in the first place, but as the setting became more arable the mod-author had to create an excuse why the bandit’s didn’t give up their violent ways and start a nice little coop, settling on them being inherently lazy , dumb, and psychopathic.   
This is exactly how d&d has historically painted most of its “monstrous humanoid” enemies. Because the game is ostensibly about combat the authors need to give you reasons why a peaceful solution is impossible, why the orcs, goblins, gnolls (and yes, bandits), can’t just integrate with the local town or find a nice stretch of wilderness to build their own settlement on and manage in accordance with their needs. They go so far in this justification that they end up (accidently or not) recreating a lot of IRL arguments for persecution and genocide.
Bandits are interesting because much like cultists, it’s a descriptor that’s used to unperson groups of characters who would traditionally be inside the “not ontologically evil” bubble that’s applied to d&d’s protagonists.   Break the law or worship the wrong god says d&d and you’re just as worth killing as the mindless minions of darkness, your only purpose to serve as a target of the protagonist’s righteous violence.  
The way we get around this self-justification pitfall and get back to our cool fantasy action game is to relentlessly question authority, not only inside the game but the authors too. We have to interrogate anyone who'd show us evil and direct our outrage a certain way because if we don't we end up with crusades, pogroms, and Qanon.
With that ethical pill out of the way, I thought I’d dive into a listing of different historical groups that we might call “Bandits” at one time or another and what worldbuilding conceits their existence necessitates. 
Brigands: By and large the most common sort of “bandit” you’re going to see are former soldiers left over from wars, often with a social gap between them and the people they’re raiding that prevents reintegration ( IE: They’re from a foreign land and can’t speak the local tongue, their side lost and now they’re considered outlaws, they’re mercenaries who have been stiffed on their contract).  Justifying why brigands are out brigading is as easy as asking yourself “What were the most recent conflicts in this region and who was fighting them?”. There’s also something to say about how a life of trauma and violence can be hard to leave even after the battle is over, which is why you historically tend to see lots of gangs and paramilitary groups pop up in the wake of conflict. 
Raiders:  fundamentally the thing that has caused cultures to raid eachother since the dawn of time is sacristy. When the threat of starvation looms it’s far easier to justify potentially throwing your life away if it means securing enough food to last you and those close to you through the next year/season/day. Raider cultures develop in biomes that don’t support steady agriculture, or in times where famine, war, climate change, or disease make the harvests unreliable. They tend to target neighboring cultures that DO have reliable harvests which is why you frequently see raiders emerging from “the barbaric frontier” to raid “civilization” that just so happens to occupy the space of a reliably fertile river valley. When thinking about including raiders in your story, consider what environmental forces have caused this most recent and previous raids, as well as consider how frequent raiding has shaped the targeted society. Frequent attacks by raiders is how we get walled palaces and warrior classes after all, so this shit is important. 
Slavers: Just like raiding, most cultures have engaged in slavery at one point or another, which is a matter I get into here. While raiders taking captives is not uncommon, actively attacking people for slaves is something that starts occurring once you have a built up slave market, necessitating the existence of at least one or more hierarchical societies that need more disposable workers than then their lower class is capable of providing. The roman legion and its constant campaigns was the apparatus by which the imperium fed its insatiable need for cheap slave labor. Subsistence raiders generally don’t take slaves en masse unless they know somewhere to sell them, because if you’re having trouble feeding your own people you’re not going to capture more ( this is what d&d gets wrong about monstrous humanoids most of the time). 
Tax Farmers: special mention to this underused classic, where gangs of toughs would bid to see who could collect money for government officials, and then proceed to ransack the realm looking to squeeze as much money out of the people as possible. This tends to happen in areas where the state apparatus is stretched too thin or is too lighthanded to have established enduring means of funding.  Tax farmers are a great one-two punch for campaigns where you want your party to be set up against a corrupt authority: our heroes defeat the marauding bandits and then oh-no, turns out they were not only sanctioned by the government but backed by an influential political figure who you’ve just punched in the coinpurse.  If tax farming exists it means the government is strong enough to need a yearly budget but not so established (at least in the local region) that it’s developed a reliably peaceful method of maintaining it.  
Robber Baron: Though the term is now synonymous with ruthless industrialists, it originated from the practice of shortmidned petty gentry (barons and knights and counts and the like) going out to extort and even rob THEIR OWN LANDS out of a desire for personal enrichment/boredom. Schemes can range from using their troops to shake down those who pass through their domain to outright murdering their own peasants for sport because you haven’t gotten to fight in a war for a while.  Just as any greed or violence minded noble can be a robber baron so it doesn’t take that much of a storytelling leap but I encourage you to channel all your landlord hate into this one. 
Rebels: More than just simple outlaws, rebels have a particular cause they’re a part of (just or otherwise) that puts them at odds with the reigning authority. They could violently support a disfavoured political faction, be acting out against a law they think is unjust, or hoping to break away from the authority entirely. Though attacks against those figures of authority are to be expected, it’s all too common for rebels to go onto praying on common folk for the sake of the cause.  To make a group of rebels worth having in your campaign pinpoint an issue that two groups of people with their own distinct interests could disagree on, and then ratchet up the tension. Rebels have to be able to beleive in a cause, so they have to have an argument that supports them.
Remnants: Like a hybrid of brigands, rebels, and taxfarmers, Remnants represent a previously legitimate system of authority that has since been replaced but not yet fully disappeared. This can happen either because the local authority has been replaced by something new (feudal nobles left out after a monarchy toppling revolution) or because it has faded entirely ( Colonial forces of an empire left to their own devices after the empire collapses). Remnants often sat at the top of social structures that had endured for generations and so still hold onto the ghost of power ( and the violence it can command) and the traditions that support it.  Think about big changes that have happened in your world of late, are the remnants looking to overturn it? Win new privilege for themselves? Go overlooked by their new overlords?
Art
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Clownfall: Endgame - Hello December
I am late writing and posting this, because it's nearly the end of term and I am mega busy (I have leave in two days and I am counting the hours...) BUT some stuff happened last week so let's dig in!
Also quick note before we do: I would like to politely request that you stop tagging this with "England" or "English politics". This is about British politics, not just England, and I am not English. Please do not erase me it takes SO LONG to write these thank you all and goodnight anyway ON WITH THE SHOW
Saturday, 25 November
12.01am
We begin our tale with Oliver Wright of the Times, who reports that … no hang on, wait, I've fucked it, okay. To understand this story, you first need to understand Simon Case.
Simon Case is a civil servant, and current Cabinet Secretary and head of UK Civil Service
He was the highest ranking public official implicated in the Partygate scandal, though he didn’t resign nor was he fined
In the Telegraph’s published WhatsApp messages from Partygate in which Tories all chatted to each other (seriously HOW do those keep getting leaked), Case made fun of holidaymakers stuck in hotel rooms by Covid regulations
In the same messages he also described some opposition to Covid restrictions as “pure Conservative ideology”, which is. An Own Goal
He also described BlowJo as a “nationally distrusted figure” whose isolation rules the public were unlikely to follow, which is true but also the Quiet Part
This information is from Wikipedia, which I’m openly admitting here, so my esteemed colleague hbomberguy can stand down.
Why am I mentioning him! Well. Case was supposed to give evidence to the Covid inquiry in October this year, but didn’t because of medical leave (ironically). In November, he still wasn’t back (should have isolated better, eh, Si), and the inquiry was given private medical information relating to Case (presumably evidence that he’s not just faking it so he doesn't have to be shouted at by angry judges and MPs and that).
So! On Saturday the 25th, eighteen and a half hours before Beep the Meep’s spectacular TV debut, Oliver Wright of the Times reports that Simon Case – uh, before his medical leave - advised Prime Minister Rishi Sunak that he should authorise pre-election talks between the civil service and Labour. Sunak - I suspect obviously - ignored this suggestion, in case it signalled that an election is now imminent.
According to Wright, it’s now questionable whether Case will ever return to his role.
Shame.
Monday, 27 November
2.44pm
House of Commons time! Let's see what our elected representatives are up to.
Tory MP Jill Mortimer says international treaties written 70 years ago "are not fit for purpose" to tackle illegal immigration, so we need to return to the "Deport the browns to Rwanda" plan. Ugh.
2.50pm
The following was reported by Matt Dathan of the Times, so CALL OFF YOUR DOGS hbomberguy.
James Cleverly – the newest Home Secretary, chappie who described another MPs constituency as a shithole in the House of Commons in his second week on the job – says the Rwanda policy isn’t the “be all and end all”.
Robert Jenrick – the Minister of State for Immigration – says the policy is an "extremely important component" of the government's small boats policy.
So! James Cleverly and Robert Jenrick disagree on this matter! Exciting! Hey, Tumblrs, just for fun...
Let’s remember those two names.
2.58pm
Robert Jenrick says boat crossings have been reduced by more than a third in the last year, but that numbers are still unacceptably high.
FUN SELF-STUDY ACTIVITY: Take a moment to form an opinion of Robert Jenrick! It’ll be worth it.
Here is some information to get you started: Jenrick this year ordered some lovely murals of cartoon characters (Mickey Mouse, Tom and Jerry, etc) to be painted over at a children’s asylum centre in Kent. His explicit reason is because he thought they were "too welcoming" for lone refugee children arriving in the UK, and such children should not feel welcome here.
Have you formed your opinion yet? Then I'll continue.
8.13pm
Rishi Sunak cancels a meeting with the Greek Prime Minister in a row over the Elgin Marbles.
Uh, there's a lot going on here - this is about the stolen marble frescoes that should be in the Parthenon in Athens, that gross British thief Lord Elgin stole decades ago and plonked into the British Museum. Greece has been asking for them back ever since, but a small handful of old white men who are in charge of the British Museum don't want to give them back and keep stating that Greece wouldn't look after them properly, which is a hell of a claim given that Elgin literally broke one when he nicked them, and also, he fucking stole them. Anyway, it turns out to the surprise of no one that Sunak also doesn't think we should give them back, and so when the matter was raised in an Anglo-Greek meeting recently Sunak literally walked out of it, even though the meeting was actually about something else.
So HERE HE IS refusing to do any diplomacy with Greece now i.e. his actual fucking job.
This is a big deal for the immigration-obsessed though! According to a Labour source, Greece is an essential ally for any agreement on illegal migration.
And even the Prime Minister’s supporters think he’s got this one wrong.
Wednesday, 29 November
Prime Minister’s Questions!
This is the (televised) point in the week where the PM has to appear in the Commons and be grilled by anyone who wants to put the boot in about anything at all. Keir Starmer decides today is the day to do some actual opposition, pushes Sunak on several fronts, and pretty much everyone reckons this is Starmer’s best ever performance at PMQs. People especially enjoy Starmer calling Rishi the “man with the reverse Midas touch”.
This is not, strictly speaking, actually funny. But it's political humour, which is like office humour. It doesn't actually have to be.
12.22pm
A former cabinet member tells the press that the Greek government are furious at Sunak’s snub. Uh oh!
Thursday, 30 November
Disgraced former Secretary of State for Health and all round human 1950s meat blancmange Matt Hancock talks to the Covid inquiry today. Specifically, to explain why he, the then-Secretary of State for Health, led the government so badly in the pandemic that we developed the second highest death rate in the world. To hear him tell it, he was an underdog hero doing his best to fight a toxic culture at Whitehall to get the pandemic handled responsibly.
The only problem with this is that it is contradicted by everyone else’s accounts.
He is called a “proven liar” who was “unfit for the job” by proven liar and unfit for his job Dominic Cummings. Former civil servant Helen MacNamara says Hancock displayed “nuclear levels” of overconfidence and said lots of things that later turned out to be untrue. Sadly for HandCock, he said these things to cameras that were recording him onto the telly, and so we do actually know.
Monday, 4 December
Keir Starmer talked about the economy today. He won’t rule out cutting public services, and it looks like he’s trying to tell disenfranchised Tory voters to jump ship to Labour.
Hope it’s a bluff! Very depressing if he’s serious. This is nowhere near as much fun as Tories being humiliated.
21.47pm
GOOD NEWS EVERYONE!
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(This is from the Mirror, you can’t destory me on your YouTube.)
Labour MP Diana Johnson proposes an amendment to the Victims and Prisoners Bill to compensate thousands of patients infected with HIV and hepatitis C through contaminated blood products in the 70s and 80s, to the tune of billions of pounds.
And it WON!  Narrowly – 246 votes to 242.  A huge deal, because that includes 23 Tory backbenchers.  That is very bad for Rishi Sunak. He he he.
Tory MP Edward Argar had tried to sort this in adance, by saying the government would provide their own similar amendment to the bill.  Basically, he realised this was a controversial bill for the party, and wanted to present a version that could be a Tory victory rather than a Labour victory and Tory humiliation.
Didn’t work.
And neither did a THREE LINE WHIP for Tory MPs to vote against the Labour plan?!?? YES KIDS YOU READ THAT RIGHT Sunak didn't want people infected with HIV and hepatitis C through contaminated blood products in the 70s and 80s to receive compensation in case it made him look bad, so he imposed a three line whip to force Tories to vote against it.
And 23 of them rebelled.
And now he looks even worse.
Lol.
Tuesday, 5 December
Have you done your homework, Tumblrs? Have you remembered those names? Have you formed an opinion?
7.38am
Home Office minister and children's cartoon hater Robert Jenrick is interviewed on Sky News.  It’s ugly stuff.  He refers to small boats “[breaking] in” to the UK.  He insists asylum seekers WILL start being deported to Rwanda before the next General Election.  And generally does big talk about cutting immigration.
What a hero.
1.27pm
James Cleverly is in Rwandan capital Kigali, as the UK signs a new treaty designed to help score the Supreme Court’s approval for the Rwanda plan.
1.40pm
So!
Cleverly’s doing pretty much what he said he’d do.  He’s trying to legislate to make the Rwanda plan safer, rather than try to disapply human rights treaties. This, of course, is the Sensible Plan, if your plan is still to get people killed, but you want it to actually succeed.
But former Home Secretary Cruella Braverman is driving a load of Tories to push to disapply human rights obligations – and she’s joined in this by Robert Jenrick!!!!
That’s RIGHT!  Hope you remembered his name, because now he’s a VILLAIN!  Or, well, more of one, and in a more immediate way. After disagreeing with Cleverly in the commons on 27 November, he’s joined Team Suella.  Tonight he’ll be part of a meeting between three different right-wing groupings...
1.46pm
The new treaty guarantees that, if these plans go ahead, asylum seekers won’t be returned to countries where their lives or freedom are threatened, and creates a requirement for an independent monitoring committee.
This treaty would be great if we lived in a world where the Supreme Court trusted the Rwandan government to honour treaty obligations.  But we live in the world where NOT having this trust was part of the reason the Supreme Court ruled the plans unlawful.
Even if this wasn’t the case, we still need new legislation, and that’ll be way more controversial than this new treaty.  The legislation was said to be ready by Thursday, which is a very short turnaround that only a lunatic would believe, but in a SHOCK DISAPPOINTING U-TURN the government now refuses to commit to this.
In any case...
This is causing cracks in the Tory party.
10.33pm
The Parliament's Christmas tree lights are turned on! 
It goes as well as anything else in Parliament:
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A visual representation of the Tory Party schism.
Wednesday, 6 December
8.21am
Boris Johnson arrives at the covid inquiry.  He will be questioned for two days.
He he he
10.26am
Johnson is asked why around 5,000 WhatsApp messages were lost on his phone from January to June 2020.
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Steffan made this brilliant meme. Please do not grass me up to hbomberman.
11.33am
It’s clear by now that Johnson wasn’t alert to the danger of covid by February 2020.  Johnson says it wasn’t declared a pandemic by WTO yet, and he wasn’t asked about it in PMQs. Gosh! What a good point, maybe!
Until the KC points out a troubling fact: “You were the Prime Minister.”
Ah. Yes. PMQs are irrelevant, you see – the Prime Minister is allowed information that the opposition aren’t. 
And, indeed, he probably would have had, if he'd actually attended the five Cobra meetings about it that would have briefed him on it just as the virus was being discovered.
12.49pm
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2.24pm
I’m skipping most of this stuff, since it’s normal lies and non-specific apologies from BJ.
But this one’s interesting.  Matt HandCock claimed he told Johnson on 13 March to call a lockdown.  There’s no written evidence of this happening.  Johnson outright contradicts it.
Lol
5.43pm
Cruella Braverman rejects Sunak’s Rwanda bill.  It fails the five tests she claimed his bill would need to pass.
These are tests she made up and published in a newspaper, I should stress, like they don't exist and she is not an authority. This is a bit like if I marched into your house, dear reader, and went "You are not allowed to celebrate the holidays this year because I personally said you have to pass my tests first and you haven't", and I'm pretty sure if I tried that you would drop me in a bin and laugh at me.
But, she has many supporters on the Tory right...
5.48pm
The Sun’s political correspondent says that if the Lords try to block emergency legislation, some Tory MPs reckon Sunak should call an election, fighting on Rwanda.
I desperately want this.  I DESPERATELY want this. They’ll lose that election so badly. SO badly. God, likes charge reblogs cast.
6.53pm
The villain Robert Jenrick … RESIGNS!
Oh no!  This is not good news if you’re the Prime Minister.
Fucking fantastic for the rest of us, though
7.26pm
Jenrick publishes his resignation letter on Twitter.  It’s two pages long, claiming the PM’s Rwanda plan basically won’t work.
Jenrick’s not wrong about that, but I speak as someone who doesn’t want any version of the Rwanda plan – not the monstrous Sunak one, and certainly not the hypermonstrous Braverman one. Good. Thanks for confirming, Darth Bell-end.
8.31pm
I enjoyed this tweet.
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8.52pm
Sunak writes back to Jenrick, claiming the new plan WILL work.
Which is not normally what happens?!? Normally they yell about their current madness in a letter, publish it on Twitter because no one else cares or will agree, and get roundly ignored. But, desperate times! Here, Sunak’s challenge is to try to win over the Tories who don’t believe in his ability to deliver the plan.  It’s a big ask.
So what are we left with?
10.37pm
A senior figure on the Tory right is asked whether their side will kill Sunak’s bill. 
And they’re not sure! If it’s the only offer on the table, it seems sensible to vote for it. 
BUT the right wing of the Tories aren’t famously very sensible.  They’ll probably try and add amendments at the very least, but it’s genuinely possible they’ll reject it out of spite, because they are LUNATICS.  Or as a political move to weaken Sunak.
And that's what you missed in the Tory Civil War!
(Up to last week)
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That the Editorial Board of the premier U.S. newspaper of record is finally warning about Donald Trump is significant. As such, this is a gift 🎁 link so that those who want to read the entire editorial can do so, even if they don't subscribe to The New York Times. Below are some excerpts:
As president, [Trump] wielded power carelessly and often cruelly and put his ego and his personal needs above the interests of his country. Now, as he campaigns again, his worst impulses remain as strong as ever — encouraging violence and lawlessness, exploiting fear and hate for political gain, undermining the rule of law and the Constitution, applauding dictators — and are escalating as he tries to regain power. He plots retribution, intent on eluding the institutional, legal and bureaucratic restraints that put limits on him in his first term. Our purpose at the start of the new year, therefore, is to sound a warning. Mr. Trump does not offer voters anything resembling a normal option of Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal, big government or small. He confronts America with a far more fateful choice: between the continuance of the United States as a nation dedicated to “the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity” and a man who has proudly shown open disdain for the law and the protections and ideals of the Constitution. [...] It is instructive in the aftermath of that administration to listen to the judgments of some of these officials on the president they served. John Kelly, a chief of staff to Mr. Trump, called him the “most flawed person I’ve ever met,” someone who could not understand why Americans admired those who sacrificed their lives in combat. Bill Barr, who served as attorney general, and Mark Esper, a former defense secretary, both said Mr. Trump repeatedly put his own interests over those of the country. Even the most loyal and conservative of them all, Vice President Mike Pence, who made the stand that helped provoke Mr. Trump and his followers to insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, saw through the man: “On that day, President Trump also demanded that I choose between him and the Constitution,” he said.
[See more under the cut.]
There will not be people like these in the White House should Mr. Trump be re-elected. The former president has no interest in being restrained, and he has surrounded himself with people who want to institutionalize the MAGA doctrine. According to reporting by the Times reporters Maggie Haberman, Charlie Savage and Jonathan Swan, Mr. Trump and his ideological allies have been planning for a second Trump term for many months already. Under the name Project 2025, one coalition of right-wing organizations has produced a thick handbook and recruited thousands of potential appointees in preparation for an all-out assault on the structures of American government and the democratic institutions that acted as checks on Mr. Trump’s power. [...] Mr. Trump has made clear his conviction that only “losers” accept legal, institutional or even constitutional constraints. He has promised vengeance against his political opponents, whom he has called “vermin” and threatened with execution. This is particularly disturbing at a time of heightened concern about political violence, with threats increasing against elected officials of both parties. He has repeatedly demonstrated a deep disdain for the First Amendment and the basic principles of democracy, chief among them the right to freely express peaceful dissent from those in power without fear of retaliation, and he has made no secret of his readiness to expand the powers of the presidency, including the deployment of the military and the Justice Department, to have his way. [...] Re-electing Mr. Trump would present serious dangers to our Republic and to the world. This is a time not to sit out but instead to re-engage. We appeal to Americans to set aside their political differences, grievances and party affiliations and to contemplate — as families, as parishes, as councils and clubs and as individuals — the real magnitude of the choice they will make in November.
I encourage people to use the above gift link and read the entire article.
[edited]
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cepheustarot · 4 months
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Who will be your love in 2024?
Attention! This reading is for entertainment purposes only. This tarot reading does not give a 100% guarantee that all the described situations will occur or being ultimate truth. You build your own life and destiny and only you know yourself best.
Paid readings
Pick a pile. Choose one or more pictures. Trust your intuition.
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Pile 1. As I see it, next year you will have a choice between two people! The first man endowed with self-confidence, quite cheerful, sociable, leads an active lifestyle. At the same time, when you first meet him, you will think that he looks mysterious and in general for you he will be like a "mysterious person", because the person will not immediately talk about himself, will hide his personal information. I would also like to point out that he is more of an observer than an activist, he needs to assess the situation first, gather information and only then act, but he may delay the process.In that sense, he needs someone to push him into action. Also, this man has hard work, diligence, he tries to develop all areas of his life, to achieve balance in them, whatever he takes, he will always succeed. 
Speaking of the second person, he tends to behave closed and cold with people, but despite this external severity, he is quite sensitive inside and vulnerable. By itself, a person does not manifest or manifests rarely emotions in people, he tries to maintain calm and resistance. But he has a good reputation among people, he’s quite intelligent, erudite, spiritual, he respects tradition. Also people can often ask him for help, as he has a lot of experience, he is wise and can always say/do something that will help people. This person is also hard-working and diligent, he can have excellent grades in his studies or good stable salary at work, his activities can be related to people, for example, he can work as a teacher, lecturer, can work/study in law or in the medical field, he can also do podcasts.
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Pile 2. Here, your love will be a person from the past, with whom you once stopped communicating. However, you have had quite good and warm relations in the past! By the way, there is a high probability that this is your friend from childhood or from youth, from school days (but this is not necessary, again). It may happen that you will meet by chance somewhere, or this person decides to suddenly call you, write, you will start a dialogue and you will begin to communicate as closely as before. By himself, this person is authoritative, he can be too serious, looks at things rationally, relies more on logic and facts and evidence will be important to him in disputes, not the feelings of a person. He is a good leader, purposeful, and at the same time he is a reliable enough person to trust! He clearly understands what he wants from life and how to get what he wants. He is also honest, always tells the truth to his face, he can be called straightforward. By the way, outwardly he has a pretty toned body, he has an athletic build!
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Pile 3. You will meet a person who inspires people, he is a good leader and speaker, he knows how to work in a team and how to achieve success.He is a good planner, and instead of improvising, he prefers planning, acting strictly according to plan, but even if something does not go according to plan, he can calmly adapt to the situation, in this regard he can be called flexibility to adapt. He is also financially literate, does not make mindless purchases, knows how to save money and generally monitors his spending money. He can devote a lot of time and effort to work, in this regard he is a workaholic who does not know what rest is. He is not one of those who likes to lose and admit defeat, so he will stand up to the end in an argument, proving his truth. At the same time, this person is prone to self-sacrifice, it is difficult for him to say "no", he is ready to help loved ones and people, is capable of full dedication. He may have many difficulties and problems in life, but nevertheless he tries to solve them all, and in general he prefers the approach of "it is better to do something that is in my power than to do nothing."
Thank you for reading! I will be glad of any feedback 🖤
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dinanikto · 2 months
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Spoilers: Episode 4 of the Walten Files
I think people misunderstood Felix as a character?
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I've seen so many fans WISHING that Felix would actually die?? Like, "if I was Jack, I would beat the shit out of Felix" or "Felix, do a flip".
I thought it was shown pretty well that he is not in the right state of mind.
Before reading this, please, gather all of your compassion and sympathy, and listen to what I'm about to say with a clear mind.
Let's speak chronologically:
1) Felix and Jack meet in college and decide to create animatronic-based restaurant. They are teens/young adults in the year 1958-1964 (not truly canon, but close to). According to Martin, they're very close, they love and trust each other.
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2) Jack meets Rosemary, they start dating. She creates designs for Bon and other characters.
Felix is, presumably, left alone to himself, as he doesn't have anyone else.
3) They graduate and contact CyberFun Tech.
Felix meets and marries Linda, while Jack and Rosemary have their first kid.
4) october 30th, 1964.
Linda notes Felix's heavy drinking and his poor self image. She's stressed and scared.
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Felix is close with the Walten family. Jack and Rose get two more kids, and they all call him uncle!
And yet, he doesn't feel welcome. He uses alcohol as a coping mechanism. "He drinks for the sole purpose of drinking!"
Please note, the year is 1964!! Even nowadays not many people can get help and cure their addictions. Not many people believe that they can, or that they deserve it.
5) december 25th, 1970.
Krankens and Waltens are so close they spend Christmas together. And yet, Felix is burdened with something.
Jack and Rose are lovey dovey, Felix and Linda are not. Waltens have three kids that love their parents deeply, Krankens do not. Jack is happy, and Felix is not.
He's still using alcohol to calm himself down.
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He can't control himself anymore.
Linda tries to talk to him, but Felix doesn't respond. Or rather, it's how Linda frames it.
"He feels bad about it, but doesn't try to change."
Honestly? Sounds like he tries to communicate, but his depression isn't letting him do it well. Again, it's 1970, and I don't think anyone has ever truly tried to help him.
He's a man. Why can't he man up? Jack is doing fine, why can't you, Felix?
Or why won't you just tell everyone how you feel? It's not like men have been bottling their emotions for decades now, right?
6) april 1974.
The Bon's Burgers is about to be open in a few weeks.
Felix and Linda have a fight (verbal). He hurts her feelings.
Jack asks Felix to pick up kids from a school party. Felix says no at first, but Jack won't listen.
Eventually, Felix says yes.
7) morning of may 2nd, 1974.
Linda leaves Felix. Only thing left after her is a note.
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No talking, no nothing. His wife of 10+ years left him.
Have you ever gone through a breakup? A breakup with your spouse? Were you in an intoxicated state of mind when your wife left you? Were you depressed when seemingly everyone have left you?
Wait, right, he has Waltens. So of course he's gonna get those kids home, that's the only thing left for him! Everyone are asking him of it.
7) evening of may 2nd, 1974.
The car crash happens.
8) may 3rd, 1974.
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He's awfully drunk. He's depressed. He got almost killed. He tried to kill himself twice. He has no one to talk about this with.
He has killed two children. Children that he loved.
Jack is going to hate him. And he does! Jack DOES want to kill him, Felix knows it even before speaking to him.
Note that he's not afraid of Rosemary.
9) may 3-6th, 1974.
He hides. He doesn't sleep for three days, and gets hallucinations.
He's scared. But the fact he actually faced Waltens is surprising. He's trying to fix things as best as he can.
10) may 6th, 1974
He lies. What else can he do?
Jack disappears. Susan disappears. Rosemary and Charles disappear. Brian and Ashley disappear.
And THIS is noway near his fault.
Bon's Burgers close. He has no money, several murder cases. Everybody is dead.
_____________________________________________
And after all of this, people don't find Felix even a little bit likeable? But support an agressive, irrational Jack, who was blind to his brother's struggling and pain? Who was the only person to not notice Felix's drinking problem?!? I'm confused.
I feel like Felix almost constantly. The mentally ill guy with no support system, that has no one to talk to. Never the one to get any help, even when having a "family".
And it's not like he thinks that he deserves love and attention. He never goes searching for Linda. He tries to end his life multiple times. He's masking as a nice corporate guy, while suffering internally.
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He suffers more than anybody else in the series. And why? What did he do? Did anyone teach him how to deal with these situations?
In conclusion: don't hate people. Never ever wish the worst for them, especially publicly.
And if you associate yourself with Kranken? Try to get help. Again, and again, and again. We live in a scary, but wonderful world. Your life is worth living, you deserve to be happy. Don't give up.
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rwrbmovie · 7 months
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BTS of #RWRBMovie: NYE kiss
via Consequence:
It was important for Henry to be the grab-and-kiss-er in this scenario, Lopez says, because “there’s something very striking about a character such as Henry, who has spent up to that point in the film being very buttoned down and seemingly in control of his urges in that moment, losing the ability to control his urges and give into the desire to kiss Alex.” Plus, there’s the additional context of Henry being literal royalty: “There’s something very sexy and romantic about a prince dropping his guard. And taking things that are old movie tropes and letting two boys do it — that was definitely the romantic gesture that we wanted to go for.” Of course, on a practical level, the grab-and-kiss has certain practical elements to consider. “The only danger on set was that sometimes [Nicholas Galitzine] would come at [Taylor Zakhar Perez] so forcefully that they would just bang faces. We were really worried about fat lips and bloody noses,” he laughs. It wasn’t just the passion of the actors that was an issue, but the terrain — according to Lopez, “they were on a slope. So Nick was going downhill.” (Passion with a little help from Newtonian physics.) On set for this as well as the film’s other, more graphic scenes was intimacy coordinator Robbie Taylor Hunt, who oversaw shooting the kiss in two different ways: “We had one where Alex is completely taken by surprise and doesn’t respond to the kiss. And then we did Version B, where Alex is taken by surprise and then does respond to the kiss. Because I wasn’t quite sure what was going to work, so I gave myself the option of having both.” Process-wise, this meant rehearsing both versions and then shooting different angles and framings, which means “those lads kissed easily like 40 or 50 times that night,” Lopez laughs. “There’s nothing like having to kiss someone 40 times in a row to really, really take the allure out of kissing.”
While the grab-and-kiss is the best term I’ve been able to come up with for this maneuver, it’s not my favorite — if only because if you Google the phrase “grab and kiss” today, the search term pulls up very unsexy results. These unsexy results (including phrases like “attempted sexual assault” and “Donald Trump”) do serve as a necessary reminder of how delicate a balance one has to strike with this particular maneuver. As Lopez puts it, “there is a gray area and I think you see it in some older movies, in which they do the grab-and-kiss and it’s icky — it just feels not consensual at all, or very uncomfortable.” What’s so powerful about the grab-and-kiss is that it’s an embrace with purpose. There’s a backstory to it, usually one involving repressed emotions and deeply held longing. That was the strategy Lopez used with Red, White & Royal Blue, using the scenes leading up to the kiss beneath the tree to emphasize “the pull between them.” (Specifically, Lopez got what he calls his “West Side Story moment” during the New Year’s party, when a crowd dancing to Lil Jon’s “Get Low” does as instructed by the song, leaving a still-standing Henry and Alex to gaze at each other across the dance floor.)
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singingcicadas · 5 months
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The beginning of the Decepticons according to Megatron:
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The beginning of the Decepticons What Actually Happened:
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That it could ever be called a revolution of the oppressed is a joke. Megatron's philosophy is purely pugno ergo sum. I fight, therefore I am. His first recruitment speech was a promise for power, made to the most bloodthirsty audience he could dig up from the dregs of society. Those people were there because they thrived off the bloodsport. They wanted audition to join Megatron in the pits. Megatron offered them something even better: turn the entire planet into our gladiatorial arena, and we take.
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Ever since the beginning Megatron viewed the Decepticons as nothing but a tool, to be used and thrown away. He wanted them to be as ruthless as possible in order to wipe out all opposition, but once his end goal's achieved, well, there's no place for ruthlessness in a perfect society under his absolute control. Therefore, remodelling and recreating. It doesn't sound like he wants to rule over actual people with individual personalities, he wants a bunch of mindless drones programmed for obeisance and peace and hardcoded to Do What Megatron Says.
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Ravage and Tarn. It's interesting how they both use the word "emancipated" when lauding Megatron's accomplishments, when it's clear that Megatron did so for the practical purpose of bulking up his army. He overthrew those in power because he wanted to be the one in power. The only one. The people he "emancipated" were just exchanging one set of shackles for another, as they had no choice other than to join the Decepticon army. Not fighting was not an option. Cowardice was punishable by traitor's wheel. Going neutral was also not an option. Soundwave had specific anti-neutral pogroms for those.
I wonder if they knew what "the Megatron they loved" had in mind for the Decepticons after they won the war. The remodeling and recreating. Or maybe they thought that's just for the lowly genericons. That they would be exempt from such treatment because they were confident of their privileged places at Megatron's side. After all, if you're rooting for someone whose motto is peace through tyranny, you'd do so with the expectation that it's only Other People who are going to get tyrannized.
It's true that he did rise against an oppressive government, despite it being the goal to replace it with himself as the tyrant.
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But he also thought the single admirable quality about Zeta was his ruthlessness. As in trying to kill an entire city of his own people to fuel his vamparc ribbon. And he said that in front of Hot Rod, who was forced to bomb his own city to stop Zeta from winning. Even disregarding the twisted values here, this is still fifteen levels up the insensitivity lane. No wonder Hot Rod didn't want to join up.
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Torture's for fun and domination. It takes a special kind of sadistic streak. And this is before the war even officially started.
Thundercracker's view on the Decepticon cause, when he defected to save humans from the nuke:
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"Everything we have done here" - Just here? He'd either been living under a rock for the entirety of the war or has some serious misunderstandings about what the Decepticon name is.
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Or just been willfully blind for four million years and the deaths of a hundred billion lifeforms until the day he decided to grow a conscience. Same with Soundwave.
Tarn's a really good case study because he's the poster boy of Megatron's Decepticon propaganda. Megatron probably spoonfeeds him the stuff by the gigabytes and he regurgitates them with twice the zeal and tenfold the pretentiousness. He's also the embodiment of the vices and tragedy of the Decepticons as a whole, as created by Megatron. A sadistic hypocrite, a glorified thug, a delusional fanatic, a customized tool for use and dispose. Crippled by the blinkering desire to be superior, to be part of a greater cause.
Megatron cares nothing for Tarn, just like how he cares nothing for the Decepticons. During the war they were a means to an end. After Megatron's defection, their "toxic loyalty" became a personal burden, a blemish from his past that he would like to cast aside and move on from but annoyingly refuse to leave him alone.
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The road-sweepers and the haulers. The miners. What were they to Megatron during the war? Disposable cannon fodder. A pretty banner to hide behind. For a movement that likes to justify itself as a revolution of the oppressed, the emancipation of the disenfranchised, there's certainly a distinct lack of those classes among the upper Decepticon ranks. Megatron said in his recruitment speech that he wanted strength and power. Then where did that leave the weak and sick, the empties on the streets?
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Nowhere but the smelting pool, to be recycled into something useful for the great Decepticon cause. They should be honoured, really.
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Freedom fighters? No, freedom won't be missed. Probably has something to do with the remodelling and recreating part.
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Starscream's only partially right. It was absolutely Megatron's intent to tap into that well of rage and resentment, and he meant for the riot to happen. Of course it got away from him in the end - that's what happens when you cobble an army out of bloodthirsty power-hungry degenerates, half of which were on board for the violence, half for their own scheming agendas, and the rest stitched together by charisma and fear - but he'd shaped the events enough to come a hairsbreadth away from winning multiple times. People like Shockwave and Scorponok were treacherous, but they weren't the reason that Megatron lost the war.
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It was his own blind arrogance that led to his downfall.
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No he didn't lose his way. He's exactly where he set himself out to be, from the moment he gave that speech in the arena. Perhaps even earlier, to that gradual slide when killing his opponent in a match no longer felt like a guilty burden but instead brought him the sweet rush of satisfaction. There was no revolution. There was no righteous cause. There was no for the people and never has been, because he did not care about other people. Four million years and countless deaths, and it was only really about one insanely self-centered person and his deluded ambition of peace through tyranny.
Hence his breakdown, because he'd just been hit in the face with the realization that he was Wrong. And has been wrong for the past four million years. He wasted everyone's lives. He wasted his own life, wasted it on anger and destruction and hatred, with nothing but regrets to show for it.
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I believe that Megatron believed he's telling the truth here. I believe that he meant every word he said, except for that one "we" on the second last line.
Because that "we" should really be "me".
The Megatron who wrote about pacifist rhetoric, who was compassionate enough to share his fuel with the injured, who cared about others and had genuine friendships, that Megatron died a long time ago in the pits. Ever since then, every murder, every atrocity he'd committed in the name of "the people" was just facist rationalization.
I'm sure that he likes the sound of "emancipation of the people" or "freedom of choice" as a concept. But when it comes down to individual people? With actual, real choices that conflicts with his desire for absolute rule? Nope. He's the only one who should get to make choices. The only one who should have choices. Because he knows best.
Form dictates your function ❌; Megatron dictates your function ✅
Function dictates your fate ❌; Megatron dictates your fate ✅
Great minds must think alike, because Megatron and the Functionalist council in the Functionalist universe did a lot of the same stuff. Massacring the Senate. Recycling people who are deemed useless burdens. Remodelling and recreating. Imperalism and genociding organics. Killing all dissenters. The Functionalists even got pretty close to Megatron's ideal of peace through tyranny with 99% of the planet fitted with brain bombs and kissing the ground at their feet. They even managed to do it while maintaining a habitable planet and full population. And Megatron took one look and was disgusted.
Megatron wasn't a misunderstood revolutionist who had his heart in the right place when he started his war. The Decepticons didn't start out well-meaning and turned bad somewhere along the way. At no point in their movement were they ever true freedom fighters. They were always Facists, through and through. They were worse than the Functionalists they hated and the Senate they overthrew. And it's important to acknowledge this because (other than it's weird to see such an obvious Facist analogy being associated with freedom fighters) otherwise you don't get the whole depth of Megatron's redemption arc, especially in the Functionalist universe.
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Like the impact of this scene wouldn't be fully apparant unless you take into account that when Megatron first formed the Decepticons, all he cared about was their fighting strength. He did not care about his troops, he did not care about individual people. He considered himself above everyone and everything. He would have sneered at such a weak, ineffective form of protest. Now he's actually being supportive and seeing people as people, instead of pawns to be used.
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Here he's genuinely happy to see the Decepticons, even those in the very bottom of the pecking order, taking enough care to greet them each by name. And also Fulcrum, who he sentenced to death twice.
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For once in his life he's actually trying to do the Right Thing instead of focusing on himself, either on his ambitions or his remorse. The people in the Functionalist universe have nothing to do with him, yet he wants to help anyway. And he's finally appreciating the value of self-determination for what it is, instead of trying to twist it to serve his own purposes or turn it into Megatron-determination.
"No one can decide how you live your life except for you." Back before, he was going to remodel his entire army to achieve his peace through tyranny. Autonomy and free will were considered things that won't be missed.
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Megatron learned to care about other people! Peace through empathy is such a groundbreaking step for his character because he used to have no empathy! He stayed true to his ideals for eight centuries despite the hardships, despite his personal losses, despite the AVL being driven to near extinction and not knowing if he would ever return to his own universe. During all those years he could have had ten million chances and excuses to break his vow of pacifism or leave on the Last Light, taking the easy way out, and there would have been no one to stop him.
But he didn’t.
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riacte · 1 month
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"It's rotten work," Ren says. His tail swishes nervously. He has the demeanor of a sad scolded puppy even though no one's scolding him.
False looks up from where she's placing down mud blocks in accordance to the roads that Ren lined out. Ren's theatre kid behaviour must be kicking in now, because to call her work rotten is dramatic and almost insulting.
"It's not rotten to me. There's stuff I would call rotten work, but this is no where near it."
False places down another block. Ren obediently shuffles out of the way.
"Rotten work is when I'm at a tourney and no one's listening to my strategy so I'm left all alone, but then they use my strategy and we actually win while everyone ignores me. Rotten work is when someone sabotages me and I'm the one left to sweep away the pieces. Rotten work is when someone attacks me on purpose and I'm the one who has to apologise for being mad and pacify everyone else. This?" False pulls out another mud block, "is building. And building is not rotten work."
Ren cautiously observes what False is doing, then also pulls out his mud blocks. He moves a few steps forward so he's placing blocks, but out of her way. "It's still work," he admits. "A lot of work, in fact."
False is nonplussed. "But that's what builders do, don't they? And I am the Minister of Transport."
Ren laughs, but it's a quiet laugh. He pauses like he's hesitating, then he mumbles,
"I'm a lot of work."
Now it's False's turn to pause. Her hands continue with placing the blocks, because that's what she does. Building. Grinding. Helping friends out. So on and so forth.
"It's peculiar work for sure," False says, her tone light. "Picking up your stuff when you spontaneously explode. Bugging you about MCC. Teaching you basic colour theory. You can't get orange from blue, Ren. It sadly doesn't work that way."
Ren chuckles at the jab. "Worth a shot, eh?"
False coughs. "Yeah, like I said, peculiar work. But it's fine. I like doing peculiar work because I'm a peculiar person and you're a peculiar person. But together we are normal. Very normal indeed."
Ren considers it. "What if I don't want to be normal?"
"Then we won't be normal."
"What if I want to be normal?"
"Then we'll be normal. Or at least pretend to be."
Ren laughs. "That doesn't make any sense."
False smiles wryly. "Come on now, Ren, when have I ever made any sense?"
He shoots her a grin. "But you're like the most sensible person in the Neighbourhood!"
False lets the silence hang between them for comedic effect. "... No."
"No?"
"If I were sensible, I would've left the Neighourhood long ago."
"Hey!"
"Just kidding. That's why I'm not sensible. That's why I like not being sensible. Besides, I'm not the one who organised the ministry or planned the roads. You did. You're the one with the vision. I'm just following it."
Ren looks around the paths and his tail wags in excitement. "But you're contributing to the vision! I saw the bits and pieces you added! It looks great, by the way!"
False nonchalantly continues placing. "Yeah, you see, that's part of the peculiar work. You draw up the canvas and I edit in the details. It's like how we did the raceway last time."
"Yeah, but I haven't grinded as hard this time around. Too busy with my permit, my dude."
False giggles. "Would you call getting the beacon permit drawing a short straw?"
"I mean, I was the second to die in Demise, but you won and everything worked out in the end, so I don't mind." A pause. "Also gives me a chance to kill those dastardly withers as revenge for all the times they defeated me."
"Right, it's a lot of work to kill them, never mind farm them."
Ren sighs deeply. "There's definitely a lot going on. Especially those buttons, man."
False glances up. They're both still doing the roads. She watches Ren shift up a step and place down a mud brick slab.
"Yeah, but it'll be worth it. I'll buy your beacons. Actually, you can go do your buttons. You can kill some withers. I'll take care of this."
She can almost hear his apologies— sorry that she's doing the roads that he was supposed to do, sorry that he didn't reply to her messages, sorry that he's the way he is.
(And maybe he picks it up too— the way she actually means "I'll take care of you". He always seems to instinctively know what she means under her contradictory and confusing words. In the same way she instinctively knows what he means.)
Ren softly chuckles. "It's peculiar work."
"It's peculiar work especially if it's me, and especially if it's you—"
False sets down a mud brick slab right next to the one Ren placed. Just one slight push, and the pattern of the bricks align like they'd been inseparable from the get go. The corner of her lips quirk up.
"— but that's why I do it."
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rillian4e · 6 months
Text
Scaramouche x f!reader
cw: nsfw, modern au, dom!scaramouche, sub!reader, fem!reader, pet names, vaginal sex, cunnilingus, foul language, teasing, spanking etc...
summary: your annoying roommate Scaramouche is done with your little antics, and decides to teach you a little lesson.
a/n: This was a request sent as a submission which is why I can't include anon, hope you enjoy
your roommate Scaramouche has been getting on your nerves, constantly ignoring you when you tell him to do something, and never talking to you without swearing or calling you names. it was really too much for you—who was he to act like that? instead of confronting him and communicating, you set yourself on a plan to tease him relentlessly, maybe then he would regret being such a jerk.
but of course, nothing ever goes according to the plan perfectly. it was finally the day to set your plan to motion, purposely wearing a short mini skirt with a cute pink top, you knew Scaramouche would now be in his room gaming, so you went ahead and made some snacks for him to enjoy, you knocked on the door and entered when you heard "I'm busy, leave." ignoring the way he glared at you when you entered anyway, you went and placed the tray of snacks on his desk, you knew just how much he loved those snacks paired with his favorite bitter tea. "Did you get hit in the head or something?" at his question, you shook your head, smiling "Of course not, I simply thought it'd be nice to do something for my roommate." Scaramouche did not believe that, eyeing you suspiciously before turning to his game, mumbling a quick "whatever", it was a success, that was after all the needed step before the main part.
you then started doing even more sweet things for him, wearing pretty outfits and being affectionate as if you two didn't argue every single day before. Scaramouche caught on and asked you where you were going, "Have you found yourself some stupid boyfriend? You've been getting all dolled up recently, it's annoying." he exclaimed, looking at you who just smiled sweetly, avoiding the question.
The next stage was the most impossible, 'accidentally' having your things drop on the floor as you bent over to pick them up in front of your roommate, getting out of the shower while only having a towel around your body, and wearing revealing outfits. only an idiot wouldn't catch on that, Scaramouche was well aware of your little antics, he could hear you touching yourself in your room, the thin walls not helping the sounds travel to his room. the last straw for him was when you asked him to fetch your towel which you just so happened to have 'forgotten', instead of simply giving it to you, he pinned you to the wall in the bathroom, embarrassed that you were now naked—infront of your roommate who you absolutely hated, you tried to break free of his grip which only lead to him tightening his grip on your hands. "What are you trying to do, slut? Think I haven't got a clue on what you've been doing, hm?" he asked, looking down at you before he went in for a kiss which caught you off guard.
"Is this what you wanted? Want me to fuck you like the whore you are?" you felt flustered at his words, feeling aroused by the situation, a moan escaping your lips when you felt his knee pressed in-between your legs, he wasted no time in putting you on the nearest surface, forcefully spreading your legs apart, as he kneeled, holding your thighs, a smirk forming on his face at the sight of your dripping core. "Looks like someone was waiting for this, huh?" he asked, giving your cunt a spank which made you cry out.
before you could react, his tongue was inside your pussy, occasionally sucking on your puffy clit and giving it slaps when you tried closing your legs, he didn't care about how embarassed you were, diving his tongue inside your tight hole. "...fuck, you taste so good...", his cock was already aching hard, wanting your tight walls wrapped around his length, but before that he was going to make you beg.
as you were close to cumming all over his tongue, his movements stopped, "Wh‐ w-why did you stop?" you asked, confused as you looked at him, he seemed amused, not even hiding his grin, "Only good girls get to cum, not naughty slutty girls like you." was all he said, you could tell what his intention was, you frowned but gathered all your courage as you gazed down at him. "Scara...p-please...I really need it, s' badly... I'll do anything! Jus' please let me cum, I'll be a good girl...!" you tried your best convincing him, surprisingly he was satisfied with that, his tongue continuing to bring you to your climax. however, he didn't give you any time to calm down from your orgasm, instead pinning you on the counter, and freeing his shorts before plunginginh his cock deep inside your cunt, "Ha...so tight..." he groaned, pressing his face into your neck, his length stretched you out in two, something you haven't felt in so long, "Look at you, your hole is clenching around me, are you that happy that you finally got what you wanted?" He asked, chuckling lowly as he saw your expression, his rough and fast pace not changing even when tears formed in your eyes—Scaramouche was delighted at the feeling of your pussy being so warm, so wet and so, so tight, he's regretting that he didn't fuck you sooner. "Mmh... maybe I should have just done this earlier, yeah? Bet you dreamed of your roommate fucking your hole like this, if not, why else would I hear you moan and touch yourself when you know I'm just next room to you?" you couldn't respond to him, too dumb on his cock to form a sentence, you felt yourself cum on his cock, what irked you was that Scaramouche didn't bother slowing down his pace, instead only rutting with more force into your overestimulated cunt. "s' t-too much!" you cried out, looking at him for some sympathy but only earning a slap to your clit, "Shut up, you're gonna take it like a good fucktoy, like the big girl you are."
you were powerless to resist, only getting more turned on at his degrading words, gosh, you loved it when he was being mean to you. Maybe it wasn't so bad to have him as a roommate? you pondered the question, was it really that bad when he could fuck you so nicely, fill your womb full of his cum?
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thewordfortheday · 2 months
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“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28
This verse brings comfort and hope to us. For every believer in Jesus, who loves and follows Him, God is working to make all things work for our good.  
You may be in a mess, today, but God can turn it into a message. Every trial you have been put through can turn into a testimony for the glory of God. Take heart and wait patiently for the Lord. Your trials will make you stronger and bolder. You can never be defeated when God is on your side. You are an overcomer!
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rauzagel · 6 months
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I love how both Hope and Haarlep immediately identify us as Raphaels "little mouse". That's just what Raphael calls us. They know exactly who we are, which isn't really surprising since we're the final piece in his plan to get the crown, something he has planned for centuries. He probably can't shut up about it. I like to imagine Raphael pacing through the hallways telling all his debtors and anyone who can't run away fast enough about our adventures and what we're up to, basically bragging about his favourite racehorse that he put all his money on in this game he created. (bets with Korilla are canon, and he puts his money on us). Or maybe it's like a daily movie night thing. Raphael forces the entire House of Hope to gather in the portal chamber to watch our adventures through one of those portal mirrors, which he uses to stalk his prey according to Hope. Can you imagine how insufferable he must be if he gets the player to sign the contract?
Haarlep might know all about us anyway since his entire purpose in the House of Hope consists of spying for Mephistopheles, and preventing Raph from scheming to get the crown of Karsus by distracting him. It's all job relevant information and since so much depends on us, and the crown used to belong to Mephistopheles, it's likely not just Raph who has taken an interested in us. Haarlep probably passes all of Raphaels intel on right away. Meeting us must be quite exciting for him. Raphael has been watching and following this one person for such a long time and then one day they just walk into Raphs bedchamber. So many possibilites, but he also knows you're an actual threat, so he proposes the game to take you out. By killing Tav, he can stick it to Raphael by messing up his plans AND steal your soul from right under his nose, which is probably the ultimate insult in devil culture. Maybe he makes good on his threats and offers Raphael your soulless body as a plaything to put more salt into the wound, gifting him the shell of the asset he was cultivating for so long. If you're strong enough to resist, Haarlep won't risk attacking you and helps you instead. If nothing else, you're at least a chance of putting an end to this tedious spy mission by taking out Raphael and you might even save the world on top of it, which would also be in his interest. If he even believes that you can take on Raphael.
So he basically has the chance to kill two birds with one stone. He harbors contempt for Raphael so spiting him would be gratifying enough, but on top of it he's also just carrying out the orders of Mephistopheles, his real master.
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hercolorchaos · 3 months
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It's been more than a month and many people are still unable to accept the fact that jimin and jungkook has enlisted together using companion system/Buddy program. They are two friends, one of the two closest friends actually for more than a decade so it actually shouldn't be that hard to accept it unless you think these two are not even friends.
There are many many taekookers and many jk solos who still belive that just because jungkook hasn't said "i do rely on jimin" means he doens't rely on jimin so for people like those let me tell you, the Buddy program itself implies that both individuals in Buddy program rely on eachother, there's no need for neither jm nor jk to say it out loud cause the main purpose of it is "RELYING ON EACHOTHER" for mental stability. Idk if y'all are actually this dumb or y'all just wanna cope with something since it's getting hard for y'all to accept it. "But jungkook hasn't said-" it actually doens't matter if he says it out loud cause the process, the name itself is enough. If he didn't need anyone to rely on or if he wanted to enlist with some other BTS members he is capable enough to do that. This man has said it multiple times that he does what HE WANTS and no one can tell him otherwise.
I read a tweet saying "if jungkook didn't get the unit he wanted then you know who held him back" this was them implying that jm begged jk to enlist with him and jk is some spinless puppy who can't do decide for his own so he went with jimin like i want y'all to go outside your shipping bubble for 10 min and say this to some people and i can guarantee you they simply gonna call you mental on your face cause that's what it's giving. See there's two options, you either Accept that jungkook is spinless human who can't think for himself or he loves jimin too much to deny him anything as lots of you people believe jm begged and jk accepted (Cause saying yes to enlist with someone for 18 months even though you don't want to means you should love that person too much) OR simply accept the fact that jimin and jungkook are two close friends who enlisted together according to their own will without anyone forcing them to do anything.
And if anyone think "jk had no option" then you're completely wrong there's many accounts who update on military service which has made it very clear that there are options for both of them to enlist individually but jimin and jungkook still decided to do it together so accept it as it is without making a fuss about it even after a whole month cause that's screaming stupidity and insecurity and nothing else.
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