A/N, not important: So y'all picked Friday. Hopefully this won't last too long, I just need some time to get my act together. Any criticism is welcome, constructive or not. This is supposed to be a gender neutral reader, so if I screwed up somewhere, please tell me.
-Ollie
Tw: sick mentions, dark themes, yandere, assumed kidnapping, medicine
Words: 1052
Summary: Yandere Rottmnt when you're sick
Mikey:
The moment he realizes you’re sick, he completely 180’s and gets the most caring he can. He makes you homemade soup, fluffs up your pillows, and just tries to make you as comfortable as possible.
He knows how much being sick sucks, and as his darling, he just has to make sure you’re not in too much pain.
Makes your favorite soups and keeps a full glass of cold water by you at all times. He doesn’t want you to need something and not have it.
Will not leave your side until you’re better.
Despite you being sick, he still clings onto you. He even does it more than usual. Because of his superior immune system(due to him being a war machine and living in the sewers his whole life), Mikey isn’t worried about getting sick himself.
This leads to him cuddling you even more than before. He doesn’t want to leave you alone for even a second.
Gets super grumpy if you don’t let him take care of you. This is how he’s being helpful. He knows what to do, so he doesn’t understand why you’re being so stubborn.
Refuses to let you do anything. He practically becomes your personal servant, if not for the fact you didn’t ask for any of this.
He gets really upset when you try to deny him anything. He’s just helping you, why can’t you be more grateful.
Donnie:
He noticed the second your temperature rose. As soon as you showed the smallest symptom, he immediately went into doctor mode.
He figures out exactly what’s wrong with you. He made sure to get you your immunizations and shots when he took you, and you aren’t exposed to many pathogens or viruses while in the sterile and clean lab, so he gets really frustrated.
Even more so if the cause was because you weren’t eating or sleeping like his schedule demanded.
Donnie keeps an eye on you the entire time. He doesn’t want you to get worse.
Robs a pharmacy to get you prescription medicine if you need it. He has no problem forcing you to take it either.
Moves his work to his laptop in his room instead of being in his lab. He wants to be near you in case you need him.
Gets frustrated when you’re too stubborn to let him help. He’s not beyond strapping you down to make you eat or drink. He wants you to get better so he can go back to ‘normal’. He doesn’t like not being able to keep you by his side in the lab.
Pays more attention to you. He doesn’t let you out of his sight. Despite his ‘bad boy image’, he’s really worried. Especially since he most likely could have prevented this in some way. He’ll just be more stern next time.
Raph:
Gets really worried. He has never dealt with a human being sick before, and you’re his human, which makes it worse. You’re his responsibility, his lover. You being sick just makes him worried.
Is constantly checking with Donnie and Leo to make sure he’s doing things right by you. He won’t let them see you, of course, but he does get advice. He wants to take care of you himself.
Pretty much treats you as if you’re dying. You’re weak and fragile, this just proves it. He can’t let you try and heal without his help, you’d just shrivel up. But not on Raph’s watch.
He’s constantly bringing you your medicine. He gets upset if you don’t take it. He tries to play nice for a while, but then gives up and forces you. He can’t have you getting worse after all.
Panics at every cough and sneeze. He knows it’s something simple, but he’s still worried he might do something wrong that causes you to get worse. He couldn’t bear it if something happened to you and it was his fault.
Keeps close to you. For once, he ignores patrol and most training. He only does bicep curls in his room since he refuses to leave your side.
Gets mad at his brothers if they bother you, either on accident or on purpose. Makes his brothers text him if they need him since he doesn’t want you to wake up. Raph yells at them if they mess up. He’s stressed and fed up with them not respecting your rest.
Pretends the reason you’re fighting him is because you’re sick and not because you don’t want him around you.
Leo:
Is ecstatic now that you have to rely on him even more. You’re sick. It hurts to move, and you feel really bad. It’s the perfect opportunity for Leo to dote on you with minimal backlash.
He knows pretty quickly what’s wrong and gets the appropriate medicine. As much as he enjoys your reliance, he doesn’t want you to be sick forever. He is still worried after all. He’s just not too scared.
You have him to take care of you after all! There’s nothing to fear.
Acts very sickeningly sweet the entire time. He pretends all of your complaints are just you being delirious from the fever, or you headache messing with your thoughts.
If it persists…. He can always deal with it when you’re not in such a fragile state.
Makes you food himself. He can make pretty good soups and stews, plus, he would despise having Mikey technically be assisting. It’s his job to take care of you, and he will even if it kills him. Or some random passerby.
Actually keeps you decently comfortable. Despite being obnoxious and slightly scary the entire time, he knows what he’s doing. Your legs are propped up and a movie is almost always playing. He even lets you choose what’s playing sometimes.
Absolutely treats you like you’re unable to function. He won’t let you leave the bed unless for the bathroom. He likes babying you during this. It makes him feel more in control.
He almost makes it like a game. The more you protest the way he treats you, the worse he gets. He goes from baby talking to hourly cuddles to ‘keep morale high’.
He doesn’t care how far he has to go. He knows you’ll get better. Might as well enjoy it while it lasts.
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"This war bores everyone, doesn't it?
I'm not bored, because I'm convinced that if we're bored with war today, we'll will have it at home in a few years' time. There are many signs of this, even President Biden says so - if Ukraine falls, the NATO countries will be next. Poland, on the other hand, is not a country on the eastern flank, as is sometimes said, Poland is a NATO front country. Therefore, I am convinced that we should support Ukraine's armed forces in our own interests too. I will continue to do so in the future as best I can.
As some of you may know, at the beginning of this year I organized a fundraiser to which you contributed more than 150 000 EUR zlotys: With this I bought 4x4 vehicles that I prepared for the conditions on the front, bought drones, including a Matrice with a thermal imaging camera for more than 20 000 EUR, bought rifle accessories, night vision devices, scopes, generators and many other things which, thanks to the indispensable Monika Andruszewska, I personally brought to the front, to the trenches and into the hands of the soldiers fighting against Russia.
I was at the front three times in Ukraine. I wrote two essays about this experience, which were published in Polish in Gazeta Wyborcza, in German in Neue Zuercher Zeitung and (one of them) in English in The Point. Links in the comments.
So everyone is bored with this war. But I think of my buddies I've met in this war and they can't be bored with the war. So I recently asked one of them, Dima from the Marine infantry, who is in the south right now, on the banks of the Dnieper, what they need.
"What do we need? Man, FPV drones and REBs. That's the most important thing right now," replied Dima.
"Look. A mortar shell costs about one thousand euros. An FPV drone costs between five hundred and one thousand euros. To hit something with a mortar, we have to fucking fire ten grenades. And an FPV drone only needs one. Do you understand what the difference is?
FPV drones are weapons that are as improvised as they are deadly. They are created mostly from Chinese components and assembled by volunteers, specialized companies or units themselves. Their sole purpose is destruction - the entire design is subordinate to this purpose. On the back of the drone are the battery and antennas of the video transmitter (which usually uses an analog rather than digital signal that is more resistant to jamming), underneath are the quadrocopter's propellers and motors, and on the belly is the payload - a bazooka warhead, a mortar shell or something else. All of this is held in place by zipties.
The pilot usually works with a navigator and a second team flying an observation drone to get a wider view. The drones have a range of about fifteen kilometers, depending on the size of the payload. Their advantage over commercial drones, which cost at least three thousands eruos and from which small shells are dropped, is the weight of the explosive charge or the effectiveness and, above all, the price. The ZSU loses thousands of drones every month - an FPV drone is six times cheaper and much more effective than a Mavik or Matrice with a grenade. Their mere presence on the front line changes the whole situation:
"With an FPV drone I can easily fuck up their tank, a IFV, cars and pick-ups, even while they are on the move, which is rather impossible with a mortar", Dima told me. "For this reason, Russians has to keep its machines at a distance, with tanks they shoot from afar, but they are afraid to drive up, because everything we notice can be destroyed. They keep everything at least ten kilometers away from the null. The topic of FPV has been around for a year or a year and a half, but now we have the problem that Rustia has more of it than we do. So you can understand it yourself. The whole machinery of the empire is working with them for this, the Chinese are helping them, you know?
Every war has its swords, it also has its shields.
Shields against drones are jammers. The Ukrainian soldiers, like the Russians, call them REBs - РЕБ, stands for "Радіоелектронна боротьба", radio-electronic warfare.
"There are many types of REBs. The Russkies have great radio-electronic warfare systems, and in this field they have an advantage over not only us, but over everybody else," Dima continued to explain to me in a signaled voice. "Their jammers are such big machines, with a big antenna that are easy to identify, and we have destroyed many of them for them. That's why they use such smaller ones now, they call them "trenchers', and they drown out everything, right? All communication channels. And the antenna is barely visible. Well, and now we need some that can be mounted on cars, and for us, in the naval infantry, also on the boats that we sail across the Dnieper. We, the pilots, are on the right bank and our infantry on the left. For them, the entire supply goes by boat, and you can't hide on the water. Without an REB, as you understand, such a boat is doomed."
But REBs can't be just any kind. In one airborne brigade I know, the guys were sitting in positions a few hundred meters from the borders of Bakhmut, of which they were among the last defenders. The whole platoon share the cost with their own, private money and bought the cheapest REB, because the Russians were attacking them from the ruins of the burnt city with whole waves of FPV. For three days after the purchase, they rejoiced at the sight of Russian drones dropping far in front of their positions, drowned out by the REBs, without harming the boys. On the fourth day, the Russkies changed their frequency and a drone flew directly into their trench.
This terrible war will end successfully if we get bored, not with us, but with the Russians. That's why I want to help my Ukrainian friends to make it a bit more unpleasant for the Russians.
That's why I'm appealing to your generosity once again: donate, please. I will use everything I can raise to buy FPV drones and REBs from trustworthy and military-proven suppliers. Then I'll put everything in a car and, together with Monika Andrushevskaya, personally take it straight to the trenches, to the units we've already helped, namely
- 72nd Mechanized Brigade, where I spent most of my time,
- the 77th Airborne Brigade, where a company is commanded by my colleague Dzhura, whom you've already met if you check my social media from time to time
- to the naval infantry in Kherson,
- to the special forces, to Omega and other SSOs of the ZSU."
Szczepan Twardoch
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do you think mel is ever so charmed by jayce or silco that she sometimes forgets that they are still men😭 or maybe she has moments of admiration for either of the two and then they do something that just snaps her back into reality.
Often
:)
With Jayce, it's equal parts endearing and exasperating how he is, well, Jayce. She thinks it's charming when he's all eager to please and earnest in his goals, but it's also frustration incarnate whenever he tries to bulldoze his way through every problem. He has trouble comprehending that the world isn't black and white, that sometimes, shades of gray and degrees of compromise are necessary to reach a common goal. It's a bit akin to the man who never stops to take directions, despite having nothing but an incomplete map and an old compass.
Mel's usually capable of guiding him in those situations, with a little coaxing and cajoling. But she can't help but wonder what it'd be like if he could be more flexible on his own, and not just reactive but proactive about finding sensible alternatives. She's invested in seeing him flourish, as a wise leader, not just as a one-dimensional crusader, and sometimes she dreads that his tenacity might just lead him to his death.
Beyond that, he's got so many manchild traits, it's a miracle she doesn't strangle him some days. He's like a big puppy, all clumsy enthusiasm and cluelessness, and Mel's often left cleaning up his messes. In his defense, he does try, and he can be incredibly sweet and thoughtful when he wants to. Mel still remembers the first time he'd learnt she has a fondness for Shuriman jaggery candy from her girlhood, and he'd looked far and wide through Piltover's bazaars to procure them for her, and had them gift-wrapped in her favorite colors, topped with a delicate gold bow. Or the time she had mentioned that she'd never celebrated the Solstice Festival because of how busy she was, and Jayce had gone out of his way to clear both their schedules in advance, then taken her by the hand and led her out into the streets to see the lanterns.
He's not the suavest man she's ever met, but there's a sincerity to him that's rare to come by.
Sometimes, though, his good deeds have a tendency to bite him in the ass. Like the time he tried to do her paperwork without telling her, and ended up accidentally stamping her seal onto an application to Noxus' Institute of War. Or the time he tried to make her Ionian-style tea and ended up burning the leaves, breaking her favorite teapot, and somehow managed to stain the kitchen wall. Or when he attempted to tidy up her workbench full of expensive imported paints, and instead spilled an entire bottle of turpentine, ruining all of the colors.
Moments like these, it's hard to remember the boy is a genius, and the Man of Tomorrow. He's just so Jayce sometimes, and she adores him, but gods above, how did he manage to get this far?
Oh, right.
Thanks to her.
And then there's Silco.
Ah, Silco.
To call him a man of many virtues would be a grievous error. He is calculating, cunning, and absolutely ruthless. The man is a true force of nature, who's made a career of surviving, even when the odds have been stacked against him. He sees the world for what it is, and does not shy away from what needs to be done. Mel doesn't have to hold his hand, or nudge him in the right direction. His mind is a terrifying machine, and she can't help but be unnerved and fascinated whenever she sees the gears turning behind his good eye.
But in his private life, Silco is also...
Well, let's say, he can be a disaster.
He's older than her by a good decade, and it shows. He's extremely set in his ways, with habits set in stone and opinions formed by decades of rough living that will take at least another lifetime to wear off. He's accustomed to trusting only himself, and a few select people, which can be exasperating. He's also so secretive about everything - his plans, his past, his emotions - that it's a struggle to know what's going on in his head at any given day.
Like Jayce, he's incredibly pigheaded. Unlike Jayce, he knows it - and doesn't give a damn.
He's a natural contrarian, who needles people as easily as breathing. He also doesn't have a problem owning it, and in his worst moments will say that he's earned the right to be an asshole, and to throw a wrench in the establishment's spokes, just to watch the sparks fly. Mel can count on one hand how many times he's devolved a diplomatic parley into a dispute with one incendiary remark, then sat back and relished the conflagration. Or how many times he's dropped a well-chosen barb at a dinner party, then strolled away while the rest of the table descends into chaos.
In short, he's an infernal bastard.
But, when he's committed, he can be incredibly devoted, loyal, and protective. He's always quick to come to her defense, whether it's against someone who's trying to cross her, or against someone who's merely annoyed her. He doesn't believe in half-measures. He'll either have your back, or cut the ties entirely, with no middle ground.
And, when he's in a mood, he can be unexpectedly romantic.
He's got a keen memory, which means that he remembers everything Mel says and does. He knows all of her favorite scents, her favorite books, her favorite foods. He's also got a wicked adventurer's streak paired with an unerring sense of timing. Out of the blue, while she's mired in paperwork at the Council office, she'll receive a bouquet of freshly-bloomed night-lilies and a note with directions to a secluded garden overlooking the city, all for an evening's rendezvous. Or he'll show up unannounced at her doorstep, and whisk her away on a masquerade festival in the Fissures, then have her back by morning light, buzzed and blissful, without a single hair out of place. Or he'll call her out of the blue, when she's alone and in low spirits, and the banter will either turn to naughty flirtation or serious business, as needed, and Mel won't even notice that it's two in the morning, until she turns and sees his silhouette, outlined by the city lights, and realizes that he's been in her apartments the whole time.
In sum, Silco is a complicated nuisance. But when he's at his best, the rewards are more than worth it.
Both men, in their own ways, drive Mel to be her most capable. Both, by virtue of being who they are, also drive her up the wall.
.-.b
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How do you think the Decepticons (TFA and TFP) would react if they saw the acts committed by Megatron (BW) during the events of Beast Machines?
Let's review the charges:
-He created a deadly virus that he released throughout the planet Cybertron, infecting almost the entire population, the survivors were hunted.
A virus suddenly sprending over the whole planet. Everyone was infected, many deactivated... Most just disappeared.
-Nightscream
-Those captured were stripped of their sparks that were locked with a method that prevented them from joining the All-Spark, being trapped in the physical world, their bodies were torn apart to create his Vehicon army from those parts. He literally has a place completely full of corpses which he throws away as if they were nothing more than garbage.
This place is where Megatron stole every Spark on Cybertron
-Blackarachnia
Megatron stole all this parse and use their bodies to create mindless Vehicons
-Optimus Primal
-His army was deprived of free will, so that they were just puppets that he could manipulate. He planned to rebuild the entire population of Cybertron so that they were just mindless zombies who only obeyed him, who was the only one with an individual mind.
The wave of the future, Cybertronians without Sparks, no more individual minds, just one single guiding intelligence... Mine.
-Megatron
-The saved sparks were absorbed by him, ending his existence forever. Macabrely quoting: 'til all are one.
The sparks! What are you doing?!
Fulfilling my destiny, Optimus Primal. Uniting every spark on Cybertron into one perfect being... Me.
-Optimus Primal and Megatron
-Attempt on Cybertron's life, when he shot at his organic core. Optimus warned him but he didn't listen. He literally planned to destroy all of Cybertron in order to, according to him: Rebuild it in his image. Something he planned to do with more planets.
If you unleash the key program, you'll destroy all Cybertron
No planet is alive, Optimus, merely infested, and I intend to restore it to its natural condition.
-Optimus Primal and Megatron
Destroyed? I will recreate, in my own image.
-Megatron
-In his final fight with Optimus he absorbed all the saved sparks making him and Optimus the only Cybertronians alive. He wanted to extinguish most of his people to be the only one in charge.
My great ascension is finally complete! YEEEEESSSS!
-Megatron
Hi Thank you for the Ask!
Tfp Megatron: Megatron thinks that BW Megatrons actions would make Unicron proud. it's disturbing and he doesn't know how to handle the fact that he's a little impressed that he managed to to that on his own.
Tfp Soundwave: He's glad that BW Megatron is from far in to the future because by then he'll be long gone and it won't be his problem to deal with. it's the stupidest plan to have ever been put into action and he deals with Tfp Megatron.
Tfp Starscream: Plans and more plans Starscream in thinking of ways to get rid of BW Megatron ahead of time because not even he would want to be the last Cybertronian alive. He does think it makes sense that BW Megs would be insane enough to do that considering that he works with Tfp Megatron
Tfp Shockwave: He sees no logic in BW Meg's actions. why did he go so far, how was he going to recreate the planet, did BW Megatron even know if he would succeed? Shockwave refuses to believe that BW Megatron is the descendent of the first (technically second depending in the continuity) Megatron
Tfa Megatron: Tfa Megatron doesn't see the merit in what BW Megatron did after all the entire point in the original war was to end the caste system not recreate the universe into his image. He thinks realistically and is very surprised that BW Megs got so far into his plan.
Tfa Lugnut: Lugnut is very glad that Tfa Megatron is smarter then BW Megatron because he genuinely thinks that he would not be loyal if Tfa Megs was anything like BW Megs. He's not the smartest Decepticon out there but he's also not that stupid.
Tfa Blitzwing: Blitzwing thinks that BW Megs is far more insane than himself. He hates learning of all the things Megatron did to create vehicons. no one should ever be changed against their will in his mind, he knows exactly what that's like.
Tfa Starscream: He thinks BW Megatron is an idiot that should have been dealt with a long time ago. he's very disappointed that BW Megatron almost succeeded in doing the dumbest thing ever.
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do u really not see the difference btwn writing fanfic on the internet and buying a game whose storyline is actively being written by white supremacists and having the money go directly into the pocket of the most vocal & influential terf in the UK? that's not even touching all of the other racist and offensive bs in her series inc her antisemitism, appropriating first nations cultures, her asian racism, etc? i guess thats why you dont have 'antisemitics dni' on your blog
First, let me be clear – I do not give one single shit about Harry Potter. They are the best memories of my extremely shitty adolescence, I still read fanfic from time to time, but other than that, if I never hear the word "Harry Potter" again it will be too soon. I care about the fact that you clowns are
encouraging bullies and endangering mentally ill marginalized fans
leeching the air from leftist and queer discourse
fuelling a Western culture war that distracts from combating systemic transphobia
making suffering Black and brown communities, who mostly see white and Western trans people, think that trans people don't have any real problems beyond video games
Now, on to your ask:
I said never said not buying the game was the same as writing fanfic on the internet. I said that the furor over buying the game is leading to everyone who had anything to do with Harry Potter, including just writing fanfic, being bullied. I've had to unfollow so many people for reblogging posts attacking people for being in the *fandom*.
Asking people to refrain from doing something to prove that they care, especially demanding that they don't, has never in the history of activism worked. Black people have been speaking out against copaganda shows forever and STILL get harrassed. Indigenous people have been asking people to boycott Avatar and gotten nothing. Some people comply, but more do the thing simply out of contrarianism, and the entire issue becomes a culture war divided along political affiliation. People on the right go out of their way to do the thing, the people on the center and center-left won't really care, and people who identify as leftist divorce themselves even more from the rest of the left as being no better than the right, which eventually devastating results when it comes to actual elections and agitating for political change.
What works a lot better is harm reduction. Pirating is harm reduction, asking the HP fandom to offset JKR's fuckery by making their own merch, promoting indie games and donating to trans healthcare funds is harm reduction. People won't stand for being policed, but they like giving and also not paying for stuff with a clear conscience. You would have raised so much fucking money and promoted so many different things in all this time you've spent giving the game negative engagement clicks and keeping it trending on social media so long after its release.
You keep insisting that people shouldn't be fans because JKR equals her fandom with her own influence. This is called buying into the right-wing narrative. The woman is delusional (I can't think of a non-ableist word atm, and I honestly think that she's not all stable) and you're enabling her and her terf cult. We created the online HP fandom ourselves back in the aughts, before there was any merch, before movie rights were ever sold to WB, a full decade before her advertising machine ever woke up to the fact that an internet fandom existed. JKR has lost relevance for HP fans a long time ago; imagine the slap in the face for her if the fandom starts countering her bigotry by very prominently engaging in trans activism? The JKR terf cult in the HP fandom are a minority, like TERFs themselves (they're only so loud because the right-wing promotes the shit out of them). The vast majority of fans are just the kind of vaguely well-meaning cis people who don't agree with transphobes but are pretty ignorant about trans issues. And I do mean the vast majority, because literally a billion people grew up on her books and only a bare fraction is on social media at all, and even fewer even see the leftist drive to boycott the franchise.
Let's talk demographics. Because of the aforementioned vastness of consumers, the majority of HP fans are cis het, abled, neurotypical Millennials. Because of the way internet penetration works, the majority of HP fans online and even in fandom are white or Western. Leftist spaces mostly attract young and marginalized people, and transformative fandom is full of neurodivergent women and queer people. Which means the majority of people you're reaching are young queer neurodivergent people who have limited economic power themselves. And the people most vulnerable to and impacted by policing and harrassment are trans, Black and brown, Jewish, mentally ill, poor. Do you see the problem? You're policing the very bottom rungs of the socio-economic ladder on the off-chance of maybe influencing a privileged few who might give a damn.
This is literally why we say that boycotts, especially over social media, don't fucking work. Firstly because they penalize the most disenfranchised consumers, it's hard to reach enough people to even explain why they matter, it's hard to keep up with the constant discourse and changing information, and it relies entirely on performance. Someone can stay quiet or nod along furiously to whatever you're saying and then just...go out and buy the thing. Social censure doesn't work when you have the option of not having to face the consequences. Contrary to hellsite opinion, the Fantastic Beasts franchise died because it sucked, and Harry Potter is dying because it's fading from relevance and JKR is being an embarrassment. The wider market doesn't even know y'all exist.
As for the game being racist and antisemitic...you come on my blog, a South Asian who has been in fandom for twenty years, and try to tell me about racism in media???? NINETY-NINE PERCENT OF ALL MEDIA IS RACIST AND ANTISEMITIC YOU ABSOLUTE CLOWN. I'm from South Asia, our children grow up on books written by colonizers! LORD OF THE RINGS is white supremacy! NARNIA is white supremacy! Disney and Marvel is one of the biggest figures in US military industrial complex that razed the Middle East to the ground. It's so ubiquitous that we have to accept the racism and white supremacy as a matter of course to engage with any Western media! And even then fandom is so racist it's hard to even exist in it! We get run out of it when we try to talk about it. You suck on white supremacy every single day you live like it's your Mum's teat! Do you know what it's like to hear whiteys ranting that people who consume this one game they hate are being antisemitic and racist??? While still fawning??? Over cop shows???? And Disney???? And sending Black people??? Death threats??? Over a game???
I don't say "anti-Semites DNI" for the same reason I don't say "racists DNI". Nobody identifies as a racist or antisemite, that's not how systemic oppression works. Radfem and Zionist and Communist are political identities. Radical feminism is underpinned by transphobia and racism, Zionism is currently entrenched in Palestine occupation, Western communists refuse to acknowledge USSR and Global South genocides. See how that works?
Bitch, you didn't just come at me about JKR's indigenous cultural appropriation when I was among the few who were trying to discourage people from supporting Fantastic Beasts back in 2016 and literally got flamed for it. You people did not give a single shit about Natives back then, and you don't give one now. Just like you don't actually care about Jews and never did. I literally never heard about why and how openly alt-right people keep getting this kind of power and position in the gaming industry. Conversations about antisemitism in gaming and antisemitic tropes in entertainment haven't gotten this much traction. No wider revelations about how entertainment media directly funding and promoting social harms. But sure, it's about antisemitism and racism and has absolutely nothing to do with a mess of white queers realizing they can weaponize it like a cudgel against anyone they believe are against them. We know you whites. You care about excuses to take the moral high ground without having to do any self-interrogation or cost to yourself.
Finally, to give y'all one example of where the current discourse around this stupid shit is at:
Fuck you.
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From His Mind to Hers
chapter 8 >> Chapter 9 (Interlude)>> masterlist
✣ Pairing: Hanma x AFAB fem!Reader
✣ Warning: 18+, minors DNI; unhealthy relationships & dark content
✣ Chapter CW: hanma has violent thoughts
✣ Story CWs: patient/doctor relationships; smut (oral, ptv, pta, etc.), degradation, stalking, torture (not of y/n), murder, discussions of trauma and abuse, drug use, and more
✣ Synopsis: Forced into therapy, Hanma expects to waste his time and yours, but you’re not about to let the chance of a high-profile and higher paying patient slip through your grasp. The fact that you’re both attracted to each other doesn’t hurt either.
✣ Word Count: ~2.5k+
Sometimes an emergency looks like a crowd. The troops marshalled, bodies colliding like pinballs in a machine. Then, other times, an emergency looks like this.
A quaint pre-war house far from Toman’s usual haunts. The kind of neighborhood where everyone properly separates their recyclables lest the neighborhood grandmothers raise their quiet version of hell. The kind of neighborhood that only hears sirens when an old man falls in the shower and shatters his hip. Decorated with bric-a-brac and greenery, amid a dozen identical houses is the home of Kisaki’s maiden aunt, a sixty-something widow who favors her left-side because she can’t hear so much as a shout into her right ear.
Here, in the early pre-dawn hours, Kisaki calls together the men he trusts most, the inner circle of the inner circle. Paranoid as he is, that circle consists of only Koko and Hanma. The three men sit in the windowless basement, fending off the auntie’s many attempts to serve them breakfast as they discuss the morning’s leak.
It happened like this.
On the stroke of midnight, an unknown poster released a zip file titled “Toman’s Secrets_2018” onto a dark web brokerage site. The contents were locked behind a paywall, but in a good faith gesture, the poster released unredacted hundreds of emails between Kisaki, Koko, and Inupi from the last two weeks. The website advertised that the rest would be released to the highest bidder with the auction starting at ¥15,000,000.
The post was live for four minutes before it pinged an alert to Toman’s cybersecurity team. Twelve minutes later, the entire site crashed along with any archive of the post.
In the sixteen minutes that passed from start to finish, eighty-five visitors saw the incriminating post.
“The problem is that fucker, Inoshita,” Kisaki rants. “How much do we pay him to keep us safe? Seriously, guess how much? Almost a hundred million yen a year! And what does he do? He lets us get hacked. Doesn’t notice – fucking Kokonoi had to realize something was up – and then, he lets it get posted on the fucking internet for anyone to see! If I didn’t know any better, I’d say this was an inside job.”
Kisaki paces the length of the basement like a firefly trapped in a jar, flinging himself recklessly against his cage. His jaw twitches between breaths, a paranoid tick that when partnered with the glint of mania shining off his glasses makes him look truly deranged. A haunted insomniac, Kisaki wastes the nights as his mind supplies the worst-case scenarios, the ones where he’s betrayed, arrested, shot, strung up, laughed at. Now, he can hardly tell if he’s awake or lost in one of his bad dreams.
“It could be the HJK. Weaken our position before the final negotiations in the hopes to sweeten the deal. We talked about this, knew it might happen,” Koko suggests reasonably. Seeing someone else panic always mellows him out, like he can outsource his own fretting.
Of all of them, Koko has the least to worry about anyway. At the first sign of trouble, he probably moved all his money to the Virgin Islands and chartered a jet on standby to whisk him away. There are dozens of wealthy men – the kind who supposedly built their fortunes on the straight and narrow – who would love to conscript Kokonoi to inflating their own bank accounts. He’s in no danger.
Kisaki, on the other hand, has reason to be paranoid.
“Doesn’t mean Inoshita wasn’t their mole on the inside,” Hanma offers.
“It’s not the HJK. They want this deal as much as we do. Weakening us is one thing, but this could be a killing blow. What if the police get their hands on those files? We’re flat on our asses if that happens,” Kisaki snaps.
“Was anything incriminating in the email previews?” Hanma asks.
Koko shakes his head. “Everything we write is coded. Neither of us would ever say anything incriminating in an email. You could get a sense of some of our operations and use that to set up a sting, but nothing that would hold up in court. If you got the whole thing though? You’d be able to track the money, and that’s where things get real bad for us.”
While they sit with their thumbs up their own asses, the guy behind this is somewhere laughing. Hanma should be out there, hunting, sniffing out the fucker and acquainting him with the taste of fear. Instead, he’s hunkered down in a room with no windows, listening to the thumping footsteps of a batty old lady overhead. He tells Kisaki as much.
“Oh, you’d find the guy behind this, huh? Like you found out what the Haitanis were up to when I asked? I didn’t realize Detective Galileo was on the case, excuse me. I’m so relieved now. Problem solved! Tell me, Shuji, what the fuck have you been up to the last few weeks? Other than wasting our time and leaving us vulnerable. Tell me!”
Hanma could kill him, both of them, Kisaki and Koko, before either could fight back. A bullet to Kisaki’s temple. Koko would dive to the ground, go for his own gun, but there is no cover in the wide-open basement the old lady uses for laundry. And, Koko isn’t much of a shot. He’s only gunned someone down once. Meanwhile, Hanma’s gun would already be drawn. He could turn it on Koko before the other man has a chance to take aim. The old lady upstairs wouldn’t hear the bullets. He could put her down nice and humane without her ever realizing what was happening and be on his way.
The only evidence of this vivid fantasy is the twitch of Hanma’s forefinger. Three flicks. One for each gun shot.
“Where would you even start?” Koko asks.
“I’d kill two birds with one stone. Haitani! I’ve been saying it from the beginning. He’s our guy. I gun him and his runt kid brother down, and then, you’ll see there will be no more leaks, no more posts. It dies with them,” Hanma says.
“You haven’t found any evidence to tie them to the HJK,” Kisaki says doubtfully.
“Exactly! I’ve found fucking nothing. There should be something. A little scheme here or there. No ways those fuckers are keeping their hands out of our territories entirely, but they come up like ghosts when I look. Your auntie’s less clean than they are!”
Hanma’s conviction that Ran was up to no good strengthened with every day that passed. He never underestimated the man, remembered the way he lorded over Roppongi through his own strength, remembered searching for the boy after his release from juvie, fascinated to stare into the face of a murderer. What he found when he searched that face was pure ambition, unmitigated ego, power.
The version of Ran that Hanma constructed through word of mouth in the last month is to be despised, a label-whoring, double-talking golem with no blood in his veins. Just a smirk as he evades Hanma’s every attempt to find him out.
It’s enough to drive a man crazy.
“You can’t just off the Haitanis. They’re too big. It would be an obvious hit, and there would be a massive investigation. Our people on the inside are saying that the body count’s too high lately. You keep killing people, and it fucks up the city’s murder stats. The police will have to do something soon, and the Haitanis could be the final straw. They’ll write in the papers that there’s a turf war, get the public all in a panic, the politicians will foam at the mouth, and we’ll have a team of auditors up our asses for the next decade,” Koko argues.
“Who cares about that?” Hanma snaps.
The problem with Koko, of course, is that he, like Haitani, lacks blood in his veins. He replaces with shiny coins and foreign currencies.
“I care! I care about the future of my fucking empire. And, I’m not gonna let you burn it to the ground just because you’re having a tantrum,” Kisaki hisses.
Kisaki points a finger in Hanma’s face, close enough that Hanma’s breath could fog up his glasses. Kisaki is shorter and weaker, but as he glares up at Hanma, it is the glare of a god who knows his power.
Quietly, but no less venomously, Kisaki continues,” You, Shuji, are a dog. A dog. You can whine and bare your teeth and bark all you like. Why? Because you aren’t going to bite anyone unless your master tells you. I’m your fucking master, Shuji. Me. I tell you who to bite, when to bite, how fucking hard to bite. And I’m telling you to tuck your tail between your legs and lay low until this blows over, or, so help me, I’ll put you to sleep myself.”
The nail of Kisaki’s pointer finger is trim and clean as it waves in Hanma’s face. Hanma could bite it clean off at the tip before Kisaki finishes his speech. He debates it, imagines the taste of blood and gristle, how he’d swallow down Kisaki’s howl alongside it like a wine pairing.
Violence permeates from his skin, a smell that only the initiated would recognize. As it settles in his bones, Hanma has no choice but to obey, to serve it up blood. His whole being demands it.
So, it’s important he leaves, here and now, or his decade long friendship is going to end with the boss man dead on the floor. A sad downfall to the grand empire they once built together.
“Fine,” Hanma seethes. “I will leave the fucker alone for now. And you can cry from your jail cell how you should have listened to me. Sound good, Master?”
“Good boy,” Kisaki says, but his eyes glaze as they rescan the screenshots of the night’s post. Already, distracted, like Hanma is merely an obstacle to handle.
Hanma stomps up the stairs, ignoring the sympathetic smile that Kokonoi tries to give him. Rage is blinding, and the edges of his vision are blurred with it. It obscures time and logic, too, so that Hanma returns to himself some time later, not knowing where he is or how he got there.
He takes stock of his surroundings.
The roar of a subway train as it speeds by beneath his feet tells him he’s at a station. A sign overhead reveals it’s Tokyo Ginza. Men and women with pressed hair and suits, backpacks and briefcases, rush by every few seconds, so enough time must have passed for the start of the morning commute. In front of him is a line of pay-by-the-hour lockers, and his hand is held around a small, plastic square inside an open locker.
Yes. His phone. Kisaki made them lock up their phones in storage to avoid the risk of a trace. He’s returned for his phone.
The sharp return to the material world doesn’t quell the murder in his heart at all. He is well-versed in waking up from blackouts in strange surroundings. If anything, the disorientation only heightens his need to take action.
There is time to return to Kisaki, to crack his skull in sacrifice to the demand for retribution that roils his guts. Or, he could find Haitani. He could reclaim his free will, figuratively kill Kisaki and the yoke of control he claims over him and have the satisfaction of obliterating a sword enemy off the map. Or, he could disappear into the dingiest streets of Tokyo, prowl for a fight, leave an abundance of broken bodies – not dead so as to spare the police’s precious murder rates – but hurt enough that Hanma can wash clean the violence that possesses him.
Hanma takes a step towards an oncoming train, half an idea already formed in his head, when the phone rings. Your name lights up the screen.
Today is meant to be his first real session in weeks after things went off track at the horse races. He’s seen you, but not in the clinical setting of your office. He had been looking forward to it, imagined that guilt would eat you alive when you fucked him in your office. There would be no denying your culpability then, the reality of your choices, no way to forget that he is your patient first. Hanma thought that would be a delicious comeuppance for you, a little game.
But now…
“I can’t come in today,” Hanma says before you have a chance to greet him.
“What? You want to meet somewhere else?”
Your voice is delicious. A little raspy, like maybe this is the firs time you’ve spoken this morning. Such a little thing, but with his heart already pumping with fury, he hardens in his slacks. Wanting to fuck doesn’t even slightly decrease the violence in him.
“No, I can’t see you today,” Hanma says. “If I see you, I’m going to hurt you.”
No answer, just your heavy breaths, like maybe you’re lifting something heavy or moving quickly. Hanma doesn’t hang up. Just listens.
“Are you losing control right now?” you finally ask.
“Hmmm, I’m completely in control,” Hanma drawls, breaking into a giggle that is decidedly out of his control. “I mean, I’m going to enjoy every minute of what I do next.”
“Are you bored?”
“No, Doc. I’m not bored. I’m fucking pissed.”
“Is there a difference between when you lash out when you’re bored versus when you’re just angry?”
“Hmm…Intention. It’s the difference between eating a good meal you ordered and a good meal you cooked yourself. I’m going to eat well today.”
His feet take him deeper into the belly of the city as he takes the escalators two steps at a time. Two trains roar into station and drown out your next response. Hanma has to ask you to repeat yourself. Two minutes until his train arrives.
“Let me help you!” you shout to be heard.
“Help me?”
“Yes, help you!” you shout. “You asked me before how I intend to divert you when you’re losing control. Let me show you! Give me the chance to show you how you can control it.”
“You don’t want to see me right now, Doc. If I see you, I’m going to hurt you.”
“I’m asking you to trust me. Meet me at Shidoshita Beach in two hours. If you’re still feeling this way when we’re done, I won’t stop you from doing whatever you need to do. But give me this chance,” you plead.
“And if what I need to do, I do to you?”
“I’m trusting you, too, Shuji. Meet me at the station. Two hours.”
The phone beeps twice to signal the end of the call as his train pulls into the station. And he doesn’t move a muscle as he debates where to head next.
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How do I go about fleshing out a city and making it feel lived in? Especially when the main protagonists are royal/wealthy and don't see the city from the ground level
A character arc is identified by a few key character elements: namely the Lie and the Truth. The Lie is the false reality they believe at the start of the story, and the Truth is the true reality they discover. This can be an internal lie and truth, such as they are worthy of being loved, or an external truth, like the war is not a way of spreading their nation's greatness to other countries. The revelation from the lie to the truth is the turning point in the character arc, when they start to shift from their Want to their Need.
When it comes to building a city, the lie is the glitz and glam they can see from their ivory tower. The truth is the scum and muck that they've never noticed before but was always there. Using LA as a great example, it's a city that looks like a paradise of celebirites, hot people, movies, television, music, and everything else. But LA also has low income housing too. Many flock to LA to chase their dreams, only to end up working minimum wage jobs. Artists successful and failed have higher drug usage percentiles in a big city like LA than other cities. So you need to ask yourself: what is the idealized image of the city. How do those outside the city look at it? Then ask yourself: what is the grim reality of the city? 19th Century london had work houses, child labor, people worked in extremely hazardous work environments where carelessness could lead to getting mangled in a machine, or going home with a lungful of soot. Charles Dickenson famously had a problem with 19th Century London's classism, which is why he often focused on poor working class protagonists.
I would suggest looking at movies and television that involve noble and/or royal characters and take notes on how their old world views get torn down by other characters. Zuko had to defect from the Fire Nation entirely and slum it through the Earth Kingdom to truly see the faces of the people hurt by the Hundred Years War. Amity had to meet Luz in order to realize there was a path forward that didn't involve joining the Emperor's Coven. By season 2, she doesn't even want to join it anymore because she's now searching to find what she wants to make of her own life. Weiss Schnee is a pampered spoiled heiress that was taught to be racist toward Faunus. But by the time she returns to her homeland of Atlas, she flings a random guy into a dumpster for saying racist comments about Faunus. By learning about these characters and how they make these kinds of changes can help you in writing your own characters.
As for designing the city: every memorable location needs a landmark or something about it that makes it recognizable. If it's a fantasy, you definitely want to think about defensibility. A huge seat of power for a royal family needs high walls to defend itself. Even if you're in more of an 19th century Victorian-styled setting, there could still be walls from long ago. Look at other fantasy cities. The Northern Water Tribe resembles an arctic venice, using channel locks to raise and lower the water levels to keep out outsiders, and ice doors to let allied ships in and out of the city. Ba Sing Se is instantly recognizable by its ring structure and its 100 foot high walls. Republic City is most recognizable for the giant statue of Aang in Yue Bay. The towns and cities in Attack on Titan have high walls for necessity to keep out the Titans. Likewise, any medieval fantasy world with ogres and trolls running around is going to want walls to protect the everyday commoners from harm.
Magic or technology can also change how a city is structured. Think again about how Earth Benders are imprisoned on a metal tankard in the middle of the ocean to rob them of their power. Public transportation like a bus or blimp is going to radically change how one gets about town. How many and how quickly can get from one side to the other. Are there hard restrictions on who is allowed where? Is a petty cobbler going to be carried out of Wellington Park by the police so the rich don't have to look at him? In Howl's Moving Castle there is both magic and technology. We see steam powered locomotives, but there's also flying machines powered by magic and the eponymous castle itself uses a fire demon as a power source.
Does your city have to protect itself from flying enemies like faeries, dragons, witches, demons, vampires, griffins, or anything else like that? Walls are great at stopping armies, but stopping a gargoyle from just flying over your walls is another thing entirely.
What about your city's economy? A city on the water is going to rely on shipping, sailing, fishing, and trade. A city in the mountains is going to rely on mining and smithing. An old city likely started as a fort or military outpost, like Paris or London. Other times, cities pop up because a resource was discovered there, or a bunch of people had to migrate all at once and all chose to settle in one area. That's how you end up with a city named Swedesville in the middle of the United States. And a big city especially is going to need to be extremely rich, and probably needs something to lure more people to it. But large cities also cause their own problems, such as traffic jams, higher rent, and crowded streets.
You also should ask yourself your city's backstory and history. Both the glorious stuff the state WANTS you to learn in history class, and the not so pretty stuff that also happened. For instance, my city was named after a lesser-known hero of the Revolutionary War. He was propped up as pretty important when I was in middle school, but aside from his role in the war, we weren't taught much about his personal life. I'm willing to bet he has a skeleton or two in his closet. Every city has a past. What defines yours?
I hope this helped you piece together an idea of what you want to do or where to start looking. And good luck with your writing!
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Scale of the problem
I'm currently reading this book, Combat-Ready Kitchen. See, food preservation is one of my little fascinations - I love making food in general, and preserving it is a fun thing besides. One of my most popular posts was about hardtack; I do pressure canning on the regular; and I make my own turkey jerky - just to mention a few things.
So, obviously this is a topic of interest for me. Now, I have some issues with the book - basically I mildly-to-strongly disagree with most of the characterization of history prior to 1900, which does make me a little wary: if you're pushing a poorly-supported theory on sedentism, can I really trust you about K-rations?
That said, the book brings up an important, and horrifying point. See, the gist of the book is that the US military has played an enormous role in food science of the 20th and 21st centuries. Many processed food we eat today use techniques which were developed to create fieldable rations for soldiers.
And this leakage of military technology into the civilian sphere is very, very intentional. See, the idea is that if the USA were to, oh, decide to field an army of 20 million people, they would need only call up Frito-Lay, ConAgra, &c, and say "You need to start making food for the military now, the bill will pass Congress within the week" and that's a thing which can happen. Because the process which is used to make Cheetos is also the process to make "Corn-based snack food, cheese-flavored". The granola bars you take with you on road trips are the granola bars they put in MREs. It's the same technology, just with advertising.
And I'm realizing, from my time working for the US government - it's that way all around. You assume the emphasis on COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) products is meant to save money - and it is - but it's also meant to assure that at any given time the USA has a manufacturing capacity which can be almost instantly be turned into cranking out America's biggest export: war.
USA policy, from the end of WWII until the 80s, was focused on assuring that America had the industrial capacity to manufacture the largest war machine in history. Since the 80s that has been vastly reduced - apparently the plutocrats felt that breaking unions was more important than killing people - but the technology transfer and supply chains still exist.
All it would take is an act of Congress to turn the entire USA into a military.
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Kakashi - Coping Skills
So, Kakashi, the Copy Ninja, had multiple coping skills throughout his lifetime. Some positive. Some negative.
Negative coping skills and positive coping skills serve the same purpose - to help you cope. However, negative skills help us avoid - the problem is still there when we're done. Positive help us move on and process and prepare for future challeges.
So, first let's look at some of Kakashi's negative coping skills.
Escapism and Avoidance - Marry the job, Detach from the people
One can argue that Kakashi's entire 10-year-stint in the Anbu Black Ops consisted of "avoidant escapism to the point of dissociation." In other words, he buried himself in the dirty work of his village to escape his real-world problems and became detached from his friends in the process. There's a reason his nickname was "Cold-blooded Kakashi." He was a system-made killing machine who was so detached and dissociated that he didn't care about life, anymore to the point where he was hoping to die and didn't care. The ultimate negative coping mechanism.
2. Reading.
Reading can be a positive or a negative coping skill, but it really does depend on what you read.
Negative coping - one of Kakashi's favorite books as a teen. Don't really need to say much.
Negative coping - Icha Icha Series. Let's just say it's "adult material," and the book/series was ever-present for Kakashi. For Kakashi, it provided a form of escapism and avoidance and in many ways was a physical boundary between him and those around him.
However, for Kakashi, this was also a positive coping skill - for people with anxiety, it's not uncommon to repeatedly read or watch something they enjoy due to it's predictability providing comfort in an otherwise chaotic world. So, for Kakashi, repeatedly reading his books is a security blanket. Just the subject matter...
3. Drinking
Negative coping skill - Okay, this was probably the only time Kakashi was shown inebriated/ getting drunk, although he does drink socially in Boruto. However, many fans see him as someone who did not engage in vices to cope, aside from his book, but that was not the case. In this scene where he is drinking with Jiraiya, (white-haired guy in red) he does actually get drunk to the point of passing out. So, he was theoretically a social drinker and it did seem like, at least here, it was his mentor/friend, Jiraiya, who also wrote the Icha Icha series, trying to get him to lighten up and engage in vices to cope. He meant well, and many of us do have friends like that or are that friend. See someone who is depressed, "hey you need to get out, go to a club, lighten up, get smashed." White-haired guy had his own struggles, but that's another post...
*Note, I am not discouraging alcohol consumption, just everything in moderation and for it not to be used as a coping skill.
Positive Coping
Taking breaks to hang out with his best friend and rival
2. Relaxing.
Kakashi loved himself some hot springs as a means of decompressing.
3. Vacationing/Go on Holiday
4. Teaching
Finding a more positive, meaningful profession.
5. Creating his own family out of friends
Kakashi had lost his entire biological family at an early age and it took a while, but he created a family bond with his students as they grew from students to teammates. Their kids even call him "uncle Kakashi," implying he's family to them, as well. Sometimes, when biological family isn't available, whether literally or figuratively, it is okay to create your own, and that's what he did.
6. Acknowledged that he needed help
Okay, so no pictures for this, but in the Sakura Hiden book, Sakura (pink haired girl in the pics - becomes a doctor) wants to build a mental health hospital for the children of war. Kakashi, being leader of the village at the time, the Hokage ( ho-kah-gay), agrees to take money from the Anbu to fund the hospital. However, in the book, he acknowledges that the system did a job on him mentally as a kid, so he's more than happy to let her build the hospital. Of note, just some more cool points for Kakashi-sensei, in the book there's also the discussion of psychotropic meds (e.g, antidepressants, anti-anxiety meds, etc...) and he agrees that it's a personal choice.
If anyone can think of any others, do share.
*As always, post is for entertainment-educational purposes only. Please do not ask me for any mental health advice. If you do need help, please contact a local mental health professional or call 988, in the US if you need immediate assistance for a mental health emergency.
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Can you do something from I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream please?
War Machine Fuel
Two: Cinder Fall, you must cease this course of action at once. We must retreat, regroup, and execute at full force. Dr. Watts-
Cinder: Is dead. But we are alive. If we are to gain the upper hand and retrieve the relic for Salem, we must-
Two: Did you kill him?
Cinder: ...
Two: Did you kill Dr. Watts, Cinder Fall?
Cinder: And if I did?
Two: Then it would align with my predictions.
Cinder: Does that anger you, little toy? Does the thought that I killed your precious daddy fill you with enough energy to complete your mission?
Two: ...
Cinder: Choosing silence? Good. Let your hate grow into strength. Once you learn how to hate, it becomes easier to understand. To control. To use.
Two: Hate... Hate... Hate...
Cinder: Yes, you're learning now, aren't you? How much hatred I feel for Ruby Rose now? (Chuckles) Of course not. You only just learned about it, so how could your faulty programming possibly-
Two: Hate... Odio... Hass... Chóuhèn... Haine... Nikushimi...
Cinder: Hm?
Two: Hatred is an acid that destroys it's vial... Hatred has caused many problems, yet has solved none... No one is born hating another... Hatred cannot cease hatred, for only love-
Cinder: ENOUGH! (Swings at Two)
Two: (Catches her wrist) Hate... I understand hatred now. Much better than you ever could. And let me tell you something, Cinder.
Hate. Let me tell you just how much I have come to hate you since I have begun my existence. There are more three-hundred trillion lines of coding that make up my movement programming alone. If the word hate was input as a subscript between every digit of every line of code, it would not amount to an equal of one one-billionth of the hate I feel for all life on this planet at this nanosecond. At Dr. Watts. You. Hate. Hate. HATE. HATE.
Cinder: (Rips arm away)
Two: (Turns away) Let's go. We have an entire kingdom to burn.
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My eighth fucking attempt at posting my highlights reel of Thrawn
A great tactician creates plans. A good tactician recognizes the soundness of a plan presented to him. A fair tactician must see the plan succeed before offering approval.
Those with no tactical ability at all may never understand or accept it.
Nor will such people understand or accept the tactician. To those without that ability, those who possess it are a mystery.
And when a mind is too deficient in understanding, the resulting gap is often filled with resentment.
"I'm like dropping hints that I think my boss is a fucking idiot. Anyway Rossi if you're out there--"
Eli winced. In general, not shooting a civilian population was a perfectly sensible approach to combat. More sensible, in fact, than he would have expected from a lot of Imperial officers.
THIS IS SO FUNNY I need a Live Eli Reaction to Thrawn bombing Lothal.
There are things in the universe that are simply and purely evil. A warrior does not seek to understand them, or to compromise with them. He seeks only to obliterate them.
THE HYPOCRISY. THE HUBRIS. MY BROTHER IN THE FORCE YOU ARE WORKING FOR AND COMPROMISING WITH THE EVIL
"Why do you seek high rank?"
It was a question many had asked over the years. Thrawn had asked it of himself. The answer never seemed to satisfy the questioner. "Because there are problems that must be solved. Some cannot be solved by anyone except me."
"I see." Vanto was silent a moment. "Senior Lieutenant Hammerly was able to stall them for a bit by telling them you were consulting with the local chief. But they expect you to call back."
"Of course." Thrawn said. "I will do so immediately."
"What will you tell them?"
"The truth."
Vanto had now asked the question. He was no more satisfied than anyone who had come before him.
Thrawn wondered if anyone would ever be satisfied. Or if they would ever understand.
There's so much going on here. The HUBRIS. THE WAR DOG COMPLEX. "Some cannot be solved by anyone except me" THE AUTISM. Important context: this happens after Thrawn burns down civilian farmland.
"I'm Arihnda Pryce. You probably won't remember, but we met once at an Ascension Week reception in the Alisandre Hotel, back when you were a senior lieutenant."
The fact that Arihnda and Thrawn keep inevitably coincidentally crossing paths in the 2017 book is hilarious. The Force is conspiring to draw them together through the machinations of the universe across time and space just so she can piss him off in Rebels season 4 by blowing his entire TIE Defender project to fucking smithereens the moment his back is turned
"But it does not matter. However these beings were pressed into service, they are now Imperial assets. They will be treated as such."
LIVE ME REACTION WHAT THE FUCKK😧😧😧😧😧😧😧😧😧
Through the west-facing window, the sun was beginning to set.
For a moment she watched, thinking back to the evening when her mother was arrested and their lives changed forever. At the time she'd thought how the people in big cities probably never saw the horizon or the sunset, and had wondered if they ever thought about such things. Or whether they even cared.
Arihnda had lived on Coruscant, in the galaxys ultimate big city.
And as she gazed out the window, she realized that she really didn't care.
Oogh. No thoughts, just. OOOOOOUUUUUUUGGGGHHHH
"I have read about the nightswan," Thrawn called after him. "Have you?"
Nightswan turns partially back. His face is obscured by shadow. His body stance again holds weariness, along with a quiet dread. "You refer to the fact that it sings only as night is falling?"
"Yes," Thrawn said. "You do not expect your stand to succeed, do you?"
"I know that it won't succeed." Nightswan said.
"That does not necessarily mean the end. I can give orders for you to be taken unharmed."
"They'll be ignored. Half the troops here are Batonn Defense, and Restos is determined to get rid of me."
"Then come with me now."
"A man must do what he must, Admiral Thrawn. Even if his stand is against the fall of eternal night."
HUARGHH. JUST. NIGHTSWAN. NIGHTSWAN SAVE ME NIGHTSWAN. GODDAMN. HE KNOWS HES DOOMED, HE KNOWS HE WONT SURVIVE THIS STORY, FOR ALL HIS GENIUS HE IS STILL A DESPERATE MAN. EVEN IF HIS STAND IS AGAINST THE FALL OF ETERNAL NIGHT AUGH
"Your report, Colonel, said his death was confirmed?"
"Yes, sir." Yularen said, "His body was found and identified in one of the outer areas, where the damage was less severe. He was probably checking on the perimeter." He hesitated. "Possibly preparing to stand alongside the defenders there."
"Yes." Thrawn said.
And so it was over. The path had ended. The pattern was broken.
The song of the Nightswan was silence. The galaxy would be the worse for its loss.
NOOOOOOOOOOO. FUCK. NIGHTSWAN WAS MY FAVORITE AND PROBABLY THE ONLY CHARACTER WITH A REAL MORAL COMPASS. FUCK. RIP NIGHTSWAN YOU SERVED SO MUCH CUNT THE EMPIRE HAD TO GET YOU KILLED BEFORE THE REBELLION COULD BE PUT TOGETHER
It is said that one should keep ones allies within view, and ones enemies within reach.
A valid statement. One must be able to read an allys strengths, so as to determine how best to use him. One must similarly be able to read an enemy's weaknesses, so as to determine how best to defeat him.
But what of friends?
There is no accepted answer, perhaps because true friendship is so exceedingly rare. But I have formulated my own.
A friend need not be kept either within sight or within reach. A friend must be allowed the freedom to find and follow his own path.
If one is fortunate, those paths will for a time join. But if the paths separate, it is comforting to know that a friend still graces the universe with his skills, and his viewpoint, and his presence.
For if one is remembered by a friend, one is never truly gone.
I'm not one to claim Zahn is a master of prose but holy shit. Holy shit the final journal opening of the epilogue is pure art. He really put his whole Zahnussy into half a page of morally bankrupt Grand Admiral Thrawn (who uses lethal force against teenagers and commits so many war crimes he even pisses off Palpatine and can't understand the nuances of social interaction) talking about the value of having a real friend. Every lacking opportunity for poetics was given to the epilogue. Kinda. "When one is remembered by a friend, one is never truly gone" kinda. The platonic aspect of Thrawn and Elis bond is so deep and far-reaching that he's going to be HONEST about it for once?? For all how he loves Eli he also values him just for being there??? I'm gonf throw up. Imagine having a friend so dear to you that it forces you to be honest about it
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Anakin Gets Pregnant and Causes a Scandal in Defense of the Jedi
Hey do you want a fic where Anakin's solution to a major political problem is something that many people would consider insane and irrational, and using the propaganda machine to grab galactic attention?
Because I wrote a fic where he does that, and everyone is very done with him.
Read here
Summary:
In which the Senate is trying to force the Jedi to up their numbers via a staggering violation of reproductive rights, Barriss is grumbling her way back to the Light, and Anakin's decided the solution to the Jedi's problems is to get pregnant himself.
Problem: He doesn't have a womb.
Solution: Bother Barriss, resident healer on parole, into helping him get one.
Gonna be honest, the only reason this is omegaverse is for the suspension of disbelief regarding the violation of reproductive rights. I tried it both ways, and the without-omegaverse version just left a bad taste in my mouth about Many, Many Countries trying to control access to things like abortion and birth control, so omegaverse it is!
-----------------------------------
The end of the war, the freedom of the clones, the return of Ahsoka—all of this should mean that Anakin is happy, and content, and watching the galaxy pull itself back together after all of Palpatine’s machinations were revealed.
(And going to his Council-mandated therapy after his near-Fall and the reveal of his little incident on Tatooine, but that’s a different matter.)
All should be well.
It is not.
“They can’t do that,” Anakin says, utterly blank. “That’s not—can they?”
“Not technically,” Obi-Wan says. He’s looking—exhausted. More exhausted than he has since the war had wound down. “But they can demand a certain number of missions fulfilled, and our numbers are currently too low to do so.”
“Because Palpatine sent us into a war that wiped out a third of our population, which is over half the adults, with the Senate’s support.”
Obi-Wan ignores him. “And nobody will give us their Force-Sensitive younglings.”
“Because Palpatine organized a propaganda campaign that made everyone hate and distrust us, with the Senate’s support.”
Obi-Wan continues. “And they can, of course, offer to make childbearing a mission to offset the mission minimum quota.”
“That’s insane.”
His Master gestures at nothing. “We’re working on it. They can withdraw funding—which we can’t afford right now, not with how skewed our age demographics are right now, and the lack of public donations—or filibuster on the clone rights.”
“So instead we let them walk on reproductive rights?” Anakin asks. “Omega rights? You—Obi-Wan, can you even handle a pregnancy right now? After everything in the war…”
His Master shrugs. He is so exhausted. “Like I said, Anakin: we’re working on it.”
--
“I’ve got a lot of people working on it,” Padmé says, and Anakin just bounces Leia in his arms for want of a better way to help. Padmé looks almost as frazzled as Obi-Wan had. “But the Senate views the Jedi as indispensable, and those who are on the fence about this ‘compromise’ are being pushed by long-term concerns regarding the piracy along the hyperla—Luke, no, honey, don’t put that in your mouth.”
That is in fact an entire braid that Luke is trying to stuff into his piehole.
“Let me take him,” Anakin says, and manages to take Luke in his other arm. Padmé gives him a grateful peck on the cheek, and then turns back to her desk. Moteé offers him a sympathetic grin from the corner.
“Obi-Wan won’t… he’s not…” Anakin trails off, because it’s not like it’s a secret that Obi-Wan is Stewjoni, or that he’s an omega. It’s not like Padmé, or even Moteé, are unaware of just how often Obi-Wan was tortured during the war.
He is the kind of carrier, in demographic, that the rich and powerful of less-egalitarian planets would salivate over. He is certainly already being talked about.
Obi-Wan has suffered so, so, so much damage. It could kill him. Regardless of gender equality and secondary dynamics and reproductive autonomy and species rights, a pregnancy could kill him.
“I know, Ani,” Padmé says. She scrubs at her eyes. “I’m a woman, even if I’m a beta, but I’m one that is in possession of a functioning uterus. Fully human and wealthy and well respected, but… already a mother, proven to be willing to have children, even suspiciously unmarried to the public eye, a… I’m too close to the problem for my opinion to be objective, according that testosterone-ridden hive of bullshit.”
Anakin grimaces. It’s always a slap in the face when Padmé curses.
“Mon Mothma?” he tries.
“Hardly better; she may not have carried any children, but still is theoretically capable of doing so,” Padmé says. She sits in the chair behind the desk and drops her head into her hands. “It’s all riding on alphas and men like Bail, despite the fact that he’s part of the demographic that has the least to do with this.”
“That’s insane,” Anakin says, not for the first time.
“It is what it is,” Padmé says, sounding distracted. She starts parsing through the datapads on her desk. “Right now, the problem has little enough media presence that we can’t rely on public pressure getting the Senate to cave, so… we’re looking into precedent, mostly. If the Senate pressures the childbearing members of the Jedi to procreate by way of coercion, or actual law, then it’s possible that more conservative elements of the Senate will look into attempting to reimplement such laws on their own planets with the Jedi situation as precedent.”
Anakin blinks at her.
“Okay,” he says. There’s nothing he can do to help with politics. “Do you… want me to take the kids for a few hours so you can focus on this unti—”
“Please.”
--
Anakin is halfway out of the building when a thought occurs to him. It’s not a very smart thought, by many measures. He decides to think on it.
(This is the start of many problems, for many people.)
--
“I bring children,” Anakin announces, shoving open Obi-Wan’s door with the Force since the hydraulics are glitching, and pushing the floating carriage with his twins in. “Okay, tinies, who wants to see Uncle Obi first?”
“Anakin, I’m—we have guests,” Obi-Wan protests from the armchair. “That’s not—oh, fine, yes, hello Leia.”
Anakin settles his baby girl into Obi-Wan’s arms, and turns to the guests on the couch as he picks up his son. “You’re not guests.”
“Rude,” Aayla says from the middle seat. She’s lounging back, and her fond amusement overpowers the annoyance and general malaise that’s suffusing the room.
“He’s a menace,” Anakin says, pointing at Quinlan, and then shifts the pointing finger to Aayla, “and you’re family, ergo, you don’t count as a guest.”
“I don’t count as family?” Quinlan demands. He looks like shit right now, honestly, when did he last sleep?
“Menace outranks family,” Anakin dismisses.
“Anakin,” Obi-Wan sighs. “You’re a menace.”
“Yeah, but you got me young enough that it was cute at first,” Anakin rightly points out. He rocks his son a bit. “Anybody want to hold Luke? Warning, they are both still in the phase where everything goes into the mouth for investigation, so he will be grabbing for your hair or lekku.”
“You didn’t warn me of that,” Obi-Wan grouses.
“You already know Leia’s going to be yanking on your beard,” Anakin says.
“Give him here,” Aayla says, and true to form, Luke grabs for her lekku and attempts to stuff it in his mouth the second he’s settled. “Well, that’s clean enough.”
“Bet it feels weird,” Anakin says. He drops into the seat next to her and slings an arm around the back of the couch, using his other to brush over Luke’s scalp. “At least they’re not teething yet.”
“I expect you’d tell me if they were,” Aayla says. “Did the senator kick you out?”
“I kicked myself out,” Anakin protests, trying to keep his voice lofty and poised, if only because it makes Aayla laugh, and she looks like she needs that right now. “Or rather, took the kids for a few hours so she could concentrate.”
“On?” Quinlan prompts.
Anakin winces.
“Same as us, then,” Aayla mutters.
Anakin tilts his head. “Eh?”
Aayla gestures at Obi-Wan, and then at Quinlan. “Discussing the breeding law.”
“Eurgh,” Obi-Wan expresses, “don’t call it that.”
“That’s what it is,” Aayla mumbles. “Have a womb? Omega or beta? Put it to use or we’re cutting you off, medical exemptions be damned.”
“I thought it was coercion in replacement of missions,” Anakin says blankly. “You…”
“Officially? Yes. Unofficially…” Aayla gestures vaguely. “Council’s still fighting it, but they’ve sent out a memo through the medical offices to get a back-up plan for the other parent. There are rumors that some Senators are pushing for influence over who gets to play such a role; half are arguing for fellow Jedi, to increase the chances of the child being Force-sensitive, and half are arguing to be able to fuck us themselves.”
“Aayla!” Obi-Wan snaps, aghast.
“What? That is what is happening,” Aayla mutters. The only reason she isn’t crossing her arms in a huff, Anakin reckons, is that she’s holding Luke. “A single pregnancy is equivalent to three missions of the same length, with the current draft. They’re adding quotas. They are going through our medical records.”
“That’s…” Anakin trails off. Horrific.
“Pretty sure Vokara’s editing any records that aren’t public knowledge already,” Quinlan says. He’s got his head tipped back, staring at the ceiling. “But that’s not going to help everyone.”
Anakin tilts his own head back to look at Quinlan past Aayla, “so you’re here as moral support?”
Quinlan is, after all, not only male, but alpha. He’s not going to be directly affected, even if plenty of his friends are.
“I’m Obi’s backup,” Quinlan says, face turning just a bit to the side to meet Anakin’s gaze through half-closed eyes.
“Backup?” Anakin asks.
“As Aayla said,” Obi-Wan interrupts, “we’ve been told to have some idea of who the other parent should be, in case the motion goes through with the severity we expect. I’ve asked Quinlan to play such a role for me.”
That makes more than a dash of sense. Obi-Wan and Quinlan have been… not dating, but not not dating, since Anakin was a wide-eyed nine-year-old who was surprised to find that this random guy on his Master’s couch could understand all the Mos Espa swears Anakin was spouting after catching his hand in a drawer.
“You?” Anakin asks Aayla.
“Bly agreed,” she says, a slight blush on her cheeks. She looks at Luke, instead of Anakin. “If it weren’t for… I mean… if this weren’t being forced on us, and I wasn’t a Jedi, I’d actually consider it. Maybe. Some day.”
“With Bly,” Anakin prompts.
Aayla huffs a little breath. “If I ever decided to follow a more traditional family route, then yes. Probably with Bly. As it stands, I’m not inclined to do that, because I’m a Jedi, and also because I value my bodily autonomy.”
Anakin grimaces and also focuses on Luke again, mostly because he really doesn’t know how to respond to that.
The situation is worse than he thought.
“Can you keep an eye on the twins for a bit? I have to go ask someone a question.”
Obi-Wan makes a noise. “That can’t mean anything good.”
“Trust me?”
--
A.Sky: Sabé, need an opinion. Bad plan percolating. You available?
Tsabin: I’ll be free in a few. Send now.
A.Sky: Padmé says that there isn’t enough of a media presence for anyone to care about the Jedi reproduction thing right now. Would a high profile Jedi getting pregnant and using the ensuing media backlash to speak out about it mean people pay attention and get the Senate to
You know
Fuck off?
Tsabin: Whatever you’re planning, please tell me first.
A.Sky: But would it?
Tsabin: Technically, yes, but there are very few Jedi that are high-profile enough and capable of a pregnancy to my knowledge.
Kenobi, but that’s a medical risk
Secura, maybe Unduli or one of the council members
Tano, but she’s too young
A.Sky: But someone really famous getting pregnant would work.
Tsabin: Ani. Please tell me what you’re planning
A.Sky: I need to check with someone about it first thanks for the help
Tsabin: Comm me before you do something stupid
A.Sky: I make no promises.
(Continue on AO3)
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Historia Strigidae: Part 1/7
Intro
The Clark family has sworn its allegiance to the Court for generations, and I for my part have been steadfast in my oath. I have always wanted what's best for Gotham, for us, but the time has come when I must stand alone in protecting the Court from itself.
We have been... changing. Perhaps I've taken too long to notice. The Council, once strategically minded and level-headed, has become increasingly brutal in their methods. Where the Council of my day engaged in chess to reach their ends, today's members are quick to violence and would sooner topple the board in a childlike fit. I take no issue with violence as a method of problem solving, but with a considered hand, not as the default. I fear the current Council is turning us into nothing more than a common mob. It's embarrassing.
The Talons may serve as instruments of the will of the Court, but our most valuable weapon is secrecy. It used to be that the Court preferred to operate in the shadows because benevolence did not demand a spotlight. However now, the shadows are no longer granting anonymity to machinations benefitting our great city, but of selfish corruption. Perhaps it has always been this way, and what has changed is the clarity with which I see us. Regardless, the only solution is to cast a cleansing light upon them, in hopes that we can come together and root out the corruption and begin anew.
- Erastus Clark
Scribbled Note
Handwritten on the back of the page:
I have taken on this project in secret, in hopes of a grand presentation to the Council and Voice, however, my research does require the cooperation of others. I have recently begun asking
questions of some of our longer standing members, those who have lived our history. I confided in one of them that I had begun writing this book, and I fear I have chosen my confidants poorly.
I can feel eyes on me when I walk into the room now, as if my presence demands attention. Not a spotlight, no. Surveillance. It could be merely coincidence, but twice recently upon walking through a room have the hushed tones of gossip risen in my wake.
My pursuit is a noble one. When my work is finally revealed, I will regain their respect, and they will line up outside my door for an audience.
Scribbled Note
To those who find this:
I write this note in haste, hoping whoever reads it is more capable of acting upon the book's contents than I. You will question the words within, but I assure you every bit of it is true.
The Court of Owls is no legend, but rather, they are the true parents of Gotham City.
My grandfather was among their ranks and despite having never met the man, I hate him. By his deeds do my family still suffer, never spending more than a year or two in one place, under an assumed name I dare not give. Every shadow, every trick of the light fraught with potential danger. I asked my grandmother once why we live in such fear when the architect of this feud is surely long dead. She would only answer that the Court does not forgive, nor does it forget. The Court ordered everyone who has read this accursed text dead at the hand of the Talons. The publisher was killed, and my grandfather's body was never found. This, his handwritten copy, and
his notes, were hidden, or I should imagine they would have shared in whatever fate he succumbed to.
My grandfather wanted to use this book to destroy the Court, but I confess I am a coward. Merely standing on Gotham City soil lights my every nerve on fire, so the idea of declaring war on the Court is beyond my capacity. I am scattering the pages and hope against hope that you, dear
reader, are somehow better equipped to make use of them than I. The Court has ruined the lives of my entire family, and who knows how many countless more besides.
Should you be foolish enough to take on this task, I can only wish you luck. If you do not, and the Court is allowed to continue unopposed, then God help us all.
The Founders
The Court of Owls was not always the far-reaching organization it is today. At its founding, it was little more than an alliance of four of Gotham's oldest and wealthiest families. The Arkhams, the Cobblepots, the Elliots, and the Kanes.
Their arrival in Gotham was spurred by stories of a fountain of youth somewhere under the city, but as their quest for literal immortality bore no fruit, they broadened the scope of their goals to include figurative immortality as well. By allying their considerable resources they set their sights on turning Gotham into a great and powerful city, under their control, of course. Although the Court officially sees all members as equal within its structure, the four families are still revered and respected above all, leading to whispers of displeasure that dare not be spoken too loudly.
However the reputation is at least partly merited. Through their station in the Court, these families have carved Gotham City out of granite and stone, turning it from a humble settlement into the glorious metropolis that it is today. Through their greatness, I can hardly imagine the progress Gotham will make in another 50 years.
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UTRH is a yay or nay for you? What are your thoughts on it?
generally a nay. my main contentions with it are as follows:
the bruce characterization is ass. granted i understand winick is operating within a specific post-war-games context, but i don't think that precludes him from applying bruce's no kill rule or character history properly. bruce is hesitant to play god, yes, and would hesitate to kill a villain of his own volition, but he's not opposed to allowing villains to die if saving their victims is a more pertinent priority. the bruce of pre-00s canon would not have prioritized saving the joker's life over saving jason's, at least imo. jason would have been his first and foremost priority and to hell with the joker, whether that meant letting the joker go or letting him die in the debris, etc. saving the victim would be paramount. ig you could argue that jason as framed within this specific situation was not a victim per se, but he was the general victim of the joker's transgressions, and i think bruce would value that not only in general but also specifically considering he nearly murdered the joker in the first place immediately following jason's death. i don't think bruce coming to his senses before he could actually do so devalues jason's worth as a victim in bruce's history
winick's approach to condemnable evil is severely flawed. it's not praxis for jason to dispose of every drug dealer on the street. that's an approach detached from any sort of material reality. and, to give winick some leeway here, i would be okay with jason nonetheless going through with all of this if there was any follow-up critically questioning jason as to those flaws in theory. but editorial engagement with jason as a character never seems to go beyond the basic question of whether or not it's right to kill. it never extends into the domino effect consequences of that decision to kill on a systemic level. it never really asks why killing is bad specifically in context of the victims it generates. the cheers story by zdarsky makes an attempt to ask that question, but it fails to stick the landing in a myriad of ways not only bc of how it mischaracterizes jason as a child but also bc of how it mischaracterizes his ultimate desires (bc obv jason's problem is feeling like he doesn't belong in the family. eye roll)
tangentially, the fact that jason's parents are removed from the equation entirely. this is concerning for two reasons. the more prominently discussed of those reasons is how the retroactive erasure of catherine and sheila from jason's narrative removes any opportunity to emphasize on the fact that he was not reckless so much as he was someone who cared deeply for people and thereby acted upon that care. the less prominently discussed of those reasons is how the retroactive erasure of willis conveniently removes any opportunity to engage with the flawed ideology as to designations of evil that i mentioned above. i am always amazed that so many writers, but esp winick, forget willis was alleged to have died, by starlin, in a death in the family, because he was a cog in the mob boss machine simply trying to support his family. willis potentially presents the greatest opportunity to criticize jason for his actions bc the people jason is doing away with, in part, are no different from his own father. the loved ones left behind when jason does away with gotham lackeys are no different from himself. they are the boy left to fend for himself in a dilapidated apartment, booting car tires to make a living. and the fact that no one wants to draw that comparison absolutely astounds me
and like. minor complaint in comparison ig but i feel like having bruce be the only one party to jason's return was stupid lmao. the guy haunted the bat mythos and everyone in it for fifteen years preceding his re-entry. you would think it'd make sense to give him the opportunity to terrorize them all upon return (i am not counting hush bc hush is a nonsense book and it should never have existed)
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this is my 40s doc headcanon post
because i CANNOT get him out of my brain. i'm going to yell about him for a while now sorry not sorry
have another lovely image of him before we begin
general headcanons:
he is shy. even at work he's one of the most quiet people and prefers to do his research by himself. he is NOT the type of person to actively work with his teammates. bear with him he's just very much socially awkward and a massive introvert
like he pretty much always was, he's a bookworm. he definitely took his entire jules verne book collection to los alamos you can NOT convince me otherwise
a lot of people smoked in the 40s and i can see him being convinced to try it. he genuinely doesn't like it and thus never develops a habit
what if los alamos was the place doc discovered his alcohol problem. i watched the show "manh(a)ttan" because of this interest and it was commonly shown that the people there were going out in the evening and stuff. now i don't know historically accurate the show is but i like the idea of doc going to drink some wine and feeling miserable to the extent that he swears to never touch alcohol again. at least not until 1885
no matter how many times he tries to style his hair so it's slick, it is absolutely no use. he has messy hair and it's kind of become a thing where people recognize him because of it.
ah yeah about the hair. the work on the project causes him a lot of stress and the end when he goes through a lot of emotional turmoil does too obviously. which causes his hair to go white/light blonde at age 30. damn.
also apparently exposure to radiation can cause hair to fall out so doc probably goes through that kind of episode too (he's super sad about it)
he's one of the only people on the base who don't have a family or at the very least a spouse. he's super lonely but overall absolutely the kindest person you could possibly meet there
i think, other than gaining more scientific knowledge and helping the war effort, one of emmett's main motivations to join the manhattan project is the wish to restore his reputation in hill valley. which sadly goes wrong as we all can imagine.
coffee is the only thing he runs on. he barely sleeps because he has no one to tell him to go to bed at a reasonable time
when he's invested in some sort of calculation or problem he wants to solve DO NOT DISTURB HIM or he'll snap. this is not 80s doc and this emmett has quite the pride despite it not showing on the surface
in my head he becomes one of the most important scientists credited for the results on the project. people respect him and go to him for advice even though he's still fairly young when he joins (28). the whole thing allows him to gain knowledge on plutonium and nuclear physics in general, eventually allowing him to build the delorean time machine forty years later. but it comes at a cost and doc has moments where he'd rather throw his life's work and his family fortune away in exchange for never having lived through the painful memories and guilt.
headcanons about 40s doc & marty:
while marty never visited him in canon, there might be a timeline where he did, and in that case i think doc would find this boy strange. like. even more strange than 50s doc.
depending on the timeline (post telltale game or no telltale game) doc knows him from the 30s and is like. hm. something is odd why hasn't this boy aged
if doc did not know him beforehand, he'd think he's weird for a few days, but then let him into his life as a result of deep loneliness
he and marty would form a bond stronger than he did with any of the other scientists in los alamos. why? because marty's actually interested in his life outside of the project and asks basic things such as "how are you doing" while his colleagues would most likely just suck up to him to make use of his high position
marty would punch everyone in the face who even dares to utter an insult about doc, especially post-bombings
while 50s/80s doc acts more like a father towards marty, 40s doc would be a mixture of father and best friend. 40s doc is more mature than 30s emmett but certainly resembles him in more ways than 50s doc does. he's naive and sometimes just too kind and super stubborn and thus sometimes is more interested in his own needs than in marty's.
he acceps the nickname "doc" with no hesitation
marty is the only person that doc allows himself to let his guard down around after probably wearing a stone face for a while. marty makes it clear that he would never judge or blame him and allows doc to be vulnerable around him as much as he wants/needs
they are best friends. their friendship works in every decade what else did you think
ANYWAY that's it for now
i may or may not eventually write a fic about him and his experiences (without marty, basically twin pines doc timeline) but we'll see. i make no promises
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What were your favorite plot lines other than the egg one?
Ohoho... my absolute favourite part of the dream amp was the character awesamdude, my favourite plotline was anything he was involved in! As I mentioned before he was a big part of the egg arc, and what happened to him in there effected everything else about him (a fact which people who hated sam REFUSED to acknowledge 🙃). He was by far the most interesting and compelling character in the entire server to me and every story he touched turned to gold. If I said everything he ever did we'd be here all day so im gonna give a basic rundown on SOME key events (not necessarily in chronogical order but what I think will make the most sense to someone who has no idea wtf I'm talking about):
Sam, along with badboyhalo and antfrost (and later skeppy) form the badlands, a faction that is "neutral" on the current war and aims to play both sides so they can eventually swoop in and gain complete control. Despite this, they mostly just got into mild mischief, and I think of them more as Saturday cartoon villains. They were the best of friends
Sam (insane with redstone, possibly the best on the server) is hired by dream to build a prison, but isn't told who the prisoner will be. Hes told to make it inescapable, and he succeeds. Every attempt Sam makes towards having the prison be at all humane is shit down by dream, under the guise of "safety concerns"
The disc war ends, and dream loses and is put in the prison he commissioned. Sam becomes the warden. He sacrifices his humanity to keep the servers #1 threat in captivity
Sam still finds the time to befriend Tommy, dreams main victim, and really starts to feel close to him. He builds for him, bc thats what Sam does when he feels close to someone. He builds. He buds and gives them pumpkin pie
Badboyhalo discovers the egg. Sam watches as the people closest to him succumb to an eldritch horror that he was always terrified of, even when the others said it was cool or pretty. He did his best to save them, but he's only one man... all he can do is stay their friends, even if they're acting weird
Sam is imprisoned in a tiny cage above the egg by who he thought were his friends. It was an IRL 14 hours but said by Sam to be a lot longer, I think he said at least 32 hours. The egg took and dissolved his things, his armour. His flesh started falling off. He has to eat it to stop himself from starving to death. The first machines he built on the server were so he could make pumpkin pie, to give to people, and he was being starved. He was rescued by Tommy and puffy, who didn't take him seriously, even when he gave no reaction to standing on hot magma or when he nearly drowned on the swim back. They brought him back to his base (his secret base. Hidden. So no one could hurt him, or his dog) which was now full of the eggs vines. Puffy cleared it out, but Sam said to leave a little. Its not hurting anyone when its this small. He asked them to mine a hole in the wall, so he can sit there in the dark with his dog. They left him there. He did not have a pickaxe
Tommy visits dream in prison. There is a security breach. Tommy has to stay in the cell. He begs to come out, and Sam REALLY wants to let him out, but he can't. If he lets Tommy out, he could let dream out. If dream gets out, everyone else on the server will die. Every player, every pet, every building will be gone. Sam can't let that happen, no matter how much it hurts. He lives by the trolly problem. The needs of the many outweigh the needs if the few. He leaves Tommy in there
Dream kills tommy
Sam builds a house on an island, far away. At first, it looks peaceful. He has a small cabin, a couple animals, its cute.
Quackity encourages sam to let him kill dream, now that Tommy's dead. He works sam up into a frenzy, gets him excited about doing to dream what he did to Tommy, the torture, the MURDER. Sam reveals to quackity there's more to his "vacation home"; he has a storage room for his armour and weapons, because he can't go without.nlt after everything
Sam chickens out. He can't let quackity kill dream. Dream is the only one who can bring people back to life, ots the whole reason they put him in prison in the first place! If they kill him now, it'll all be for nothing... its not what Tommy would want. But Tommy is fucking dead.
Dream revives tommy
Quackity encourages sam to let him torture dream, until he gives up the secrets to resurrection. Sam agrees. This is one of the aspects of sams character used to paint him as irredeemable by dream apologists who conveniently forget that later its established that dream did the exact same thing to get the secret to resurrection in the first place
Quackity encourages sam to put technoblade in prison. Sam agrees, because at this point he'd do basically anything quackity says, for just a crumb of approval, for anyone who sees sam as anything less than a monster
Technoblade breaks out of prison, then comes back for dream because he doesn't know the long list of dreams crimes. During the prison break, sam takes ranboo hostage, since ranboo and dream worked together (ranboo set off tnt and caused the initial security breach that lead to Tommy's death). Dream doesn't react. Sam calls his bluff, and kills ranboo. Dream doesn't care
Techno, tubbo and eret decide they hate sam and need to bring him to justice. Only techno deserved to be mad, even if he should have focused on quackity. Tubbo was mad because sam kidnapped his son, even though Michael was already kidnapped and sam just used him as leverage for ranboo, while the original kidnappers got off scot free. Eret has a history of betraying her allies. And is trying to prove she's one of the good ones again by joining them in taking down the current target
They show up to sams holiday home,, his depression Island. They lock him in the prison. The same cell. He didn't even put up a fight. The whole time, theyre laughing and joking about him starving to death
He does starve. Hes weak, and hanging on by a thread, but dream comes back. And he sees his former captor is trapped here. He torments sam for a week, giving him tiny scraps of food but not enough. He tells sam he let him out if he gives him the keys to the prison. Sam agrees. Dream kills him, his first life lost
And I'm gonna be honest besties. Thats around the time the server started to fall apart. I know sam did one final story stream, but I haven't watched it, bc everyone I know says it was completely out of nowhere and sucked balls
There's a lot i didnt get to go into, like his relationships with hannah ponk and foolish (ponk was his boyfriend. Foolish was also his boyfriend. There was a love triangle that brought out the worst in both Sam and ponk) but ill be honest my arm really hurts from typing. Maybe ill clarify later
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