#its been replaced with war and betrayal (literally.)

[indecisive-dizzy]

mfw when the silly n wholesome au gets lore and angsty

#HOW #It was supposed to be Sillyyyyyy #am i That mad tho #hmm tough question! angst is juicy #but also.. my wholesomeness... its broken #its been replaced with war and betrayal (literally.) #typing out loud

[yandere-romanticaa]

𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘏𝘰𝘸𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨.

❝ The sun is rising, the screams have gone. Too many have fallen, few still stand tall. Is this the ending of what we've begun? Will we remember what we've done wrong? ❞

Based off the song "The Howling" by Within Temptation.

yandere! xiao x yaksha! reader.

❤️ Art credit: - motiommmm on Twitter.

❤️ Note: Xiao is a character that I've always been fond of and after the quest we had in 2.7, this song just reminded me so much of him. It was tough choosing a lyric because literally any could fit. Find the lyrics or listen to the song, you'll understand what I mean.

⚠️: character death.

"If you die, I'll die too (y/n)."

How long has it been since he said that? How many battles have been fought since that fateful day, how many of your comrades were you forced to see die right before your own two eyes? The task of being a yaksha was not an easy one but you were always proud of yourself for being able to hold out for so long.

Pride. That's one of the few things that kept you going.

You could feel the darkness coming for you at the dead of night, when the world was resting you were at war with yourself, you could hardly sleep a wink let alone do something else.

That's why Xiao made such an effort to be there for you.

You were young and in love when you first met him. Fast as the wind and handsome like a prince, it was love at first sight for you when it came to Xiao. Your brothers and sisters constantly teased the two of you and would always throw flowers at you, proclaiming that you were meant to be together. Xiao never made any comments but he never pushed you away either. Seeing you dance in the shimmering meadows freely beneath the moonlight was therapeutic to him. Sometimes he would even join you, his face stoic as ever but he moved like water and danced his heart out with you. His soft grip on your waist still lingered in your memory, the warmth and love of his darling gaze is what gave your life meaning.

Which is why this current predicament was so impossible to handle.

Laughter was replaced by screams, love wilted away into despair. Xiao was still in love with you but over the years as he continued to kill he would lose himself more and more. He would come back shaky and bloody, promising to make the world a safer place for you, whether you wanted it or not. His karmic debt was swallowing him from the inside out and it was getting to you as well. One evening, he proclaimed that he was going to protect you until the day he dies.

Never had he imagined that day would be now.

Sorrowful tears blurred your vision as you held your sword tightly against its hilt, the blade itself being deeply thrust into Xiao's firm chest. Scarlet red droplets fell to the ground, the sound of the thunderstorm and the rain masked your wallows of agony. Betrayal and hurt were written all over his face as he tried to grab your weapon, but his grip was too weak. His jade spear was on the ground, long forgotten by its master as he breathed in deeply. He lost the ability to speak as blood started to fill his mouth and spill onto you. Without warning he suddenly fell to the ground, his knees on your feet as you held him tightly against your chest, his own hands soon enough found their home on your body. You couldn't even look at him, not when the pain was so great. Xiao refused to go down without a fight however and with the miniscule amount of strength he had left he managed to steal a kiss from your bruised and bloody lips, for the final time. You could see the life being drained from his beautiful golden eyes as his grip got weaker and weaker. He was silently pleading you to look at him, please look at him, do not leave him all alone.

Looking up towards the gray sky the last thing he was ever going to see was you, his little glimmer of light.

Xiao had lived for ages and had many regrets but the one that he can never forgive is how much he had hurt you.

It's okay though, you reasoned with yourself. Even as he was bleeding to death on the ground you could still see what he was trying to tell you even if he could not use words anymore. Grabbing a small knife that was in your pocket you pressed it against your own neck with an iron tight grip. You were going to go to the same place that Xiao was going towards any second now.

If reincarnation really existed, you prayed that the two of you could be reborn in a kinder world.

A sharp pain engulfed you, you could not breathe anymore.

The world was now pitch black.

#yandere #yancore #yanderecore #yandere x reader #yandere aesthetic #yandere imagines #yandere x you #genshin impact #xiao genshin impact #genshin xiao #genshin impact xiao #yandere xiao #xiao #yandere genshin impact x reader #yandere genshin x reader #yandere genshin imagines

[burst-of-iridescent]

Oh, thank you, my day is good, but after your message it got even better! I really found solace on Tumblr, which I could not find either in these terrible comics or in LOTR. To be honest, I hardly mastered the latter at all, literally forcing myself to watch series after series, searching in vain for the former depth of characters and conflict. In my opinion, LOTR is a complete failure on all fronts, with the exception of high-quality drawing. If it's about comics, it's an illogical development of events, which, unfortunately, is laid down in the last series. I wanted to ask you -how do you feel about Ursa's line? I was offended by her decision to leave the children (of course, it happened against her will, but still -to change her face and personality, forget about her beloved son and lead a happy life with an old lover?! Don't get it wrong, a woman should suffer for the rest of her days because of a failed marriage, she should not give up happiness if fate sends. But in the context of this story, in your opinion, does it not look like a betrayal, first of all of herself (Ursa?), and of course her children. She couldn't help but understand what kind of hell they got into, first of all the son, after her disappearance. And if you also disagree with this "canon", what would you see the fate of Zuko and Azula's mother? (sorry for such a long letter!)

hi again! thank you, you're so sweet!

i 100% feel you on both LOK (i'm guessing LOTR is a typo?) and the comics. it's so disappointing because both the show and the comics have some great conceptual ideas, and in the hands of competent writers, could've been excellent continuations of ATLA and worthwhile successors... but instead we got a flaming pile of garbage that deserves to be at the bottom of the sea.

the search isn't the worst atla comic imo (that honour goes to the promise) but it's definitely doing its damn best to earn that spot. i hate so many things about that comic: the outdated, insulting depictions of mental illness and mental healthcare in azula's story, zuko getting a "replacement sister" in kiyi as a fix-it bandaid, the fact that it becomes a whole gaang adventure when the correct narrative choice would've been for zuko and katara (and maybe azula at most) to take this trip together as a full circle from the southern raiders, katara and sokka's only role in the story being to foil zuko and azula and nothing else, and of course... the complete annihilation of everything ursa's character was set up to be in atla.

i agree with you that it is very much a betrayal of ursa's character for her to willingly lose her memories. she knows she's leaving her children in the hands of a dangerous abuser, one who's already molding her daughter into a lethal weapon and was fully ready to murder her son, who has proven his willingness to sacrifice his children without hesitation if it benefits him. but despite this, despite the fact that she committed murder, accepted exile and even risked her life (for she had no way of knowing if ozai would simply let her leave peacefully) to protect her child... suddenly she's willing to throw all of that away and fuck off with her childhood lover at the first opportunity?

it baffles me why bryke didn't at least make ursa's memory loss an accident, which would've both explained her absence and why she never went to look for her children without committing character assassination in the process - but that's probably expecting too much logical writing from those two.

i'm actually planning a post-canon book 4 zutara fic that would include a rewrite of the search, where ursa didn't just fuck off to do nothing, but actually had a redemption arc very similar to zuko's after secretly fleeing to live in the earth kingdom and seeing the damage the war had done. she takes it upon herself to right the fire nation's wrongs, and grows particularly invested in air nomad culture, seeing it as her duty to try and bring back some of what the genocide had destroyed. shortly before zuko's banishment she sets out to find the remnants of a people long believed to be gone - and finds that maybe they're not entirely gone after all.

i won't spoil the rest, but i think it'll both explain why ursa never went back for zuko and azula while still giving her a meaningful story that didn't involve just swapping one family for another. if only we'd gotten something similar in the comics but alas... bryke gonna bryke.

thanks for the ask! no worries about it being long, i thoroughly enjoy reading your thoughts <3

#anti atla comics #anti the search #anti bryke #zutara #asks

[kaypeace21]

When did they compare Will and El to Leia and Luke? I love that comparison and honestly they are and Mike is Han.

There's a bunch of starwars refs :)

in s2 kali teaches El to lift a train with one handed telekesis. Similar to yoda trying to teach luke to lift the ship - with one handed telekesis. Kali (yoda) makes el (luke) see an illusion of their father- papa(Darth Vader). Mike yells "its a trap" to el- the line was said to luke . We have in s4 - el being told by owens she's "our best hope". Which is a parallel to when luke is talked about: " that boy is our last hope". In the season 4 part 2 teaser- Brenner says el isn't ready power wise to leave, but she goes anyways to rescue her friends. Similar to luke being warned by yoda that he's not ready (power wise) to go save his friends yet (but going anyways). El also says "get out of my head" to another psychic , kali (this line was said by Rey to kylo,another force user). In s2,while with kali, El also strangled a bad guy with her powers (using 1 hand) which is a darf Vader ref. But unlike him, she stopped.

We also had both henry and Will be called "wizards" who are "sensitive". Aka a reference to starwars- being "force sensitive" = having powers.

And in s1, dustin mentioned the lando betrayal when on the walkie talkie with Hopper: which may have been foreshadowing for Hopper later telling Brenner- El's location at the school .

And I mentioned this other point a few years ago (the Will/leia parallel)- here. But I'll repeat it :). Mike at the end of the s1 writes a d&d story for Will. We know it's for Will because Will said to Mike "it's a 7. The demogorgan it got me". And the story is about defeating a 7 headed monster. In the end, the prince was so happy and grateful- he had a medal ceremony for our 3 heroes. It echoes how at the end of the first starwars film: there was a medal ceremony for the 3 heroes. And princess leia gave medals out -including one to han (who at the medal ceremony winked at leia) .

I mean (at the end of s1) mike literally replaced a girl who nerdy boys fantasized about (princess leia)for a prince (who was a stand in for Will).meanwhile at the end of s1 mike says el "was like a yoda" when dustin tries to claim she's like a wizard (something Will is hmmm).

It's a little suspish given the fact mike is a huge star wars fan: having a yoda doll and millennium falcom. Him and his friends even gave Will star wars toys for his bday. Cough mike's subconscious is outing who he actually sees romantically XD

And yeah, all 3 do parallel han, luke, and leia. Will even says he's El brother - so both el/Will may be force weilding siblings (who weren't raised together /look like twins- kind of like luke and leia). Everyone also expected luke (el) to "get the love interest" simply because he was the main hero. But ... we know how that went. Love triangle with 2 siblings involved too . Just... the st love triangle would be less weird (than star wars') for obvious reasons XD

#byler #will byers #el hopper #mike wheeler #kali prasad #henry creel #jim hopper #stranger things #star wars refs

[princess-of-the-corner]

I always wonder how an ML civil war would go because I feel like most everyone would be inclined to side with Ladybug? They don't really have any particular connection to Chat Noir, aside from Felix who would do it both out of loyalty to Adrien and distrust of Maribug. Alya would pick Marinette, Nino hates Chat Noir. Kagami MIGHT go with Chat if she knew it was Adrien but given her whole "I love Marinette I trust Ladybug with my life and ALSO Felix's and Adrien's" thing idk; Luka and Alix are both toss-ups who'd try to stay out of it- Luka because he wants to look for a peaceful resolution and Alix because she probably literally can't intervene. Everyone else is kind of just there

Honestly I think that, given what's happening at the end of Season 5 with Ladybug keeping everything all secret, we could have a better reason for some of the team to go against her.

Because if all this comes out, if they find out how much she kept from them, how much she kept from Chat, how badly she handled certain situations like everything the day of Miracle Queen.... I could see it.

I could see it happening with that. Remember we mentioned the idea of Mari tells Alya and Alya tells Nino and Nino goes 'oh hell no' and tells Adrien? That could kick it off.

Nino finds out about the whole 'Adrien is a Sentimonster, Gabriel was Monarch, we're not telling Adrien' thing and, well, tells Adrien. Adrien has a breakdown about That™, spills the beans that he's Chat Noir because he's trying to say that Nino's lying because 'surely Ladybug wouldn't lie to Chat? Surely she'd tell me of all people?!' but whoops she didn't.

And he's hurt and pissed and confronts Ladybug on the whole thing because he can understand somewhat lying to 'Adrien' but lying to 'Chat'? (And telling Rena).

They have a big blowup fight which starts the fracturing of the whole thing.

Nino is on Adrien's side because the boy should've been told shit. Alya stays on Mari's because like. She gets why she hid that shit and how she was under so much stress and the full scope of the whole 'she thinks telling Chat will fuck things up because it has in other timelines'.

Toss in both Chloé and Zoé for Chat's side. Because maybe they have a blowup fight too at first when Chloé finds out that Zoé replaced her, but the fight turns into telling Zoé what happened during Miracle Queen in its entirety (the threats, the betrayal, etc.). Zoé realized that Maribug REALLY fumbled that whole situation and blamed Chloé for it in the aftermath after basically sabotaging her attempts in the first place(not to mention the double standard of Mari telling Chloé that she should do her best to imitate Audrey and earn her love while telling Zoé that she shouldn't have to appease Audrey to earn love)

So they both hop on over to Team Chat and switch off the Bee.

Kagami and Felix are leaning more Team Chat because they agree that Adrien should've been told about the fuckery of his existence and Felix in particular is kinda pissed about Gabriel being remembered as a Hero instead of a bastard. Kagami I think the tipping point would also be learning the full scope of the Miracle Queen incident because she learns how Maribug broke the 'if your identity is known you're benched' rule so that she could interrupt Kagami and Adrien's date(like yeah it didn't work out with Adrien but DICK MOVE GIRL)

Luka and Alix are probably the most sensible in the 'she made some bad calls, but for the most part she was trying to do the right thing. It's okay to be hurt by that anyway. But we're friends, we're a team, we need to work this out'.

The rest of the Team could go either way because like. No offense but they don't have the most fleshed out personalities. This could flesh them out more with how they react to hearing what all went down.

#ml leaks #ml civil war

[bloodpen-to-paper]

The Status of the Double Life Duos in Limited Life

-Etho and Joel are on their divorce arc; Joel was jealous Etho supposedly replaced him with a cow so he killed the cow, then Etho killed Joel during the Great Green Life Hunt and sounded like a maniac while doing it

-Scott came over to Entertainment Mountain/Insecure Mountain/Secure Mountain/The Rock/The Mountain and chatted with Cleo quite often; he also let Cleo take one of his lives willingly. Mean Gils and the Clockers seem to have had an alliance during the Red Wars, and Scott fought along side Cleo until the very end.

-Grian and Scar were enemies, with Bad Boys having killed members of Team Clocker, and Clockers retaliating by burning the mansion. Then they became cousins. Then they went back to being enemies. (at one point Grian called Scar dad, its all a bit jumbled). Finally, during a supposed truce, Grain quite literally backstabbed Scar and took him out of the series (in Grian's words, it was "the ultimate betrayal")

-Ren isn't around so no BigB-Ren reunion :( At least he got a Pearl

-Speaking of, Pearl and Scott were friendly, with her even helping Scott and Martyn pick out their team name (Scott and Martyn ironically enough are a team this time around), before Pearl stole Mean Gils' enchanter and her and Scott developed hate tension the likes of which hasn't been seen since SmallEtho divorce. They continued to quip at each other here and there, until the final stages of the Red Wars where they were consistent enemies, with the two aiming to take the other out permanently

-Pearl was friendly enough with Martyn, though upon asking if he had a Tilly, he did throw gunpowder and say he "cremated her" so that happened. Her and Cleo don't trust each other, and sort of went around statuses until they eventually became enemies and Pearl helped eliminate Cleo

-Cleo and Martyn seemingly had no relationship/were neutral for the most part. Mean Gils and the Clockers had an alliance going during the Red Wars so they never attacked each other, though Scott was mostly the glue that held up that group

-The T.I.E.S. dislike the Bad Boys, and so far Jimmy and Tango have had limited interactions (Jimmy saying "Sorry Rancher" after Joel killed their cow comes to mind); they do however seem friendly enough with each other, with Tango even complimenting Jimmy for killing him, despite their teams' enemyship

-Grian tried to scam BigB into letting him expand Bad Boys Bread Bridge onto Nosy Neighbor territory; BigB almost let him before Pearl stopped it. BigB and Grian also allied near the end of the series, with Grian trying to convince BigB to leave Pearl for him and Joel until Bad Boys and Nosy Neighbors as a whole teamed up. Grian became an official Nosy Neighbor once Joel died.

-Impulse gave Bdubs a clock as a sign of peace considering their bad blood from previous Life sessions, and seeing as Bdubs remembers the good times from their marriage more than anything, Impulse wanted to bury the hatchet. Bdubs frequently hung out with T.I.E.S. (granted more for Etho than anything), but this had them on friendly terms, with Bdubs even becoming an honorary member. However, at some point Impulse assisted Tango in betraying him for a boogey kill, and during the Red Wars T.I.E.S. and the Clockers became enemies until eventually Impulse killed Bdubs, eliminating him entirely

-Regarding Etho and Bdubs... yeah I'm not touching that mess, y'all have fun tho

#lemme know what I missed! #and hope this was as fun for you as it was for me #the relationships are so messy and i love it #limited life smp #limited life #limited life smp spoilers #limited life spoilers #double life smp #double life

[treetownconfessions]

thinking about htf au where fliqpy is the demon entity creature thing of all time except he was such a menace that he got sealed up into dogtags and those got thrown deep into the jungle in a huge lake within it so hes basically trapped there forever. and flippys just a regular ass private and he knows the tiger bomb mission was just a massive setup to kill him and his friends but he cant do anything about it so the night before the mission he goes outside to look at the stars and the water all emo-like and miserably one last time because hes accepted hes gonna die and the spot he chose is literally the lake fliqpy was imprisoned and when flippy looks at his reflection in the water it distorts to fliq since he's looking back and starts talking to him and. flippys super sleep deprived and insane and its the dead of night so he doesnt even fucking care that his own distorted reflection is talking to him in the lake now and thinks hes probably just dreaming. and fliq asks him whats wrong and flippys like "im gonna die tomorrow :( cant do anything about it" and fliqpys like "yeah that sounds unfortunate. i bet youd like not-dying over dying right" and flippys like yeahi guess, and then fliqs like "i can do that for you! stick ur hand in the pond" and flippys like "what" and fliqs like "do it. Put Your Hand In The Pond" and flippys like fine, and puts his arm in the pond and has to dig around for a bit in the water to find the dogtags and when he lifts it out hes like "what is this gonna do" and fliqpys like "yeah that. that thing :) dont worry about it just replace that with your regular dogtags and everything will be sorted out. lol. lmao" and flippys like ok fuck it i have nothing to lose and does as he says and fliqs reflection is gone at this point so he heads back to his camp and falls asleep. he wakes up and literally nothing has changed and hes convinced its just a dream so he goes out 100% sure hes about to die today. and the tiger bomb mission happens the same with his friends dying and fliq appearing and flippys like Ohhhh. u WERENT just a figment of my imagination. and fliqpys like "yeah im here to take over your body as my own so i can properly free myself" and flippys like "oh. dont do that please" but fliqpys a massive asshole and kind of only tricked flippy into the events of last night bc when he saw flippy he realized he could switch out his physical inhabitance from the dogtags to him so now flippys fucking stuck with this murderous incomprehensible entity and fliqpy is originally only using flippy as a temporary host until he can create his OWN body and inhabit that (which will also probably kill flippy in the process once he leaves him) but theyre also in the middle of a war so hes like ok, i have to keep flippy alive until this war is over so he can keep being my host, and then when its done and we leave i can get to making my own form freely. but his plan goes south because. he falls in love with flippy and then is stuck between striving for the freedom hes been wanting and calculating for since the day he was imprisoned and staying and caring for this silly green bear whos shown him kindness hes never had before even in the face of betrayal and its not like he can do both because again itll probably fucking kill flippy so hes just so torn up over it and he doesnt recognize these feelings he has for someone seemingly so insignificant and. yeah

im going to die

#fanfic

[potuzzz]

No, Russia is not overthrown by a military coup.

If there is one rule of thumb that Western people should follow, it's to not take any geopolitical news story about an enemy of the United States seriously.

Especially when it claims total collapse of said enemy is imminent, when the story is only a few hours old, when it is being relayed by major Western news networks, and ESPECIALLY if it is even tangentially related to the Ukrainian war. New methods for wartime propaganda have been tested voraciously by the United States for this conflict and ya'all are making it way too easy for them.

.

Here's a little info:

The questionably unstable leader of Wagner Group (there are multiple mercenary groups all loosely called "Wagner"), Prigozhin, led what seems to be a coup-attempt where he left the Ukranian front with a small force and militarily occupied parts of the Russian city Rostov, motivations and goals not entirely clear but there is plenty of speculation. They were quickly surrounded by Russian and Chechen forces. Super based essentially-socialist President of Belarus Papa Lukashenko talked it out with Prigozhin and convinced him to drop whatever this coup attempt was, which Prigozhin did. Russian government offered amnesty to all Wagner mercenaries who surrendered peacefully, as the rank-and-file claims Prigozhin's intentions to attempt a coup were not made clear to them. Prigozhin is a very valuable Russian military asset despite his increasingly questionable mental state, but Putin made it clear earlier today he regarded the actions as a grave betrayal.

Lots of details are still murky, and it will likely take a few days for the dust to settle.

.

As much as the United States would like you to believe Russia is a fascist empire that is simultaneously a rampaging lunatic endangering the world, as well as a completely incompetent paper tiger that is one Ukranian aid package away from total collapse, neither of these are true. This is the hundredth time Western media has made a mountain out of a molehill trying to convince Western civilians that Ukraine can, will, and should win and Russia can, will, and should lose. One second they will tell you "The ruble is rubble!", tomorrow they will grumble and give reluctant props to the Russian fortress economy. One day they will gloat and mock Russia's supposedly incompetent, ill-prepared, and corrupt military, the next they will bend over backwards to explain why Ukraine losing 5 soldiers for every 1 Russian soldier retaking a purposefully abandoned corn field in Kherson is a good thing.

These reptilian ghouls will look you in the face and tell you that Russia bombed its own oil pipeline, that Nazis in Ukraine are freedom fighters, that Russians eat babies and that the millions of civilians they evacuated and sheltered from harm's way were all forcibly detained and not literally given the choice to stay. These are the same ghouls that squawked about how Black Lives Matter was violent riots and that we should militarize the police to destroy them, that Saddam Hussein had WMDs and that we should destroy Iraq, that we should give the reins of green energy transition to oil tycoons and that we should destroy public sector funding for it. How many times must you be lied to before you learn to never trust these psychopaths?

Putin may be a massive homophobe, but outside of that he is a very decent, smart, and sensible leader of a country that has endured United State's aspirations to colonize them for over 100 years and has only resumed success in doing so since Putin first took power. Please stop uncritically believing whatever NATO spooks and war lobby puppets have to say about Putin, Russia, or anything related to Ukraine, and definitely stop cheerleading Russian collapse. If, God forbid, the USA succeeded in its aspirations to coup Putin and replace him with a Western puppet, the living standards of Russia and all its former Soviet kindred (such as Ukraine) would plummet dramatically, millions would die, wars would double, and the cruel US Empire and the World War it has been waging ever since it picked up the pieces from the Nazi Empire would extend its life another unnecessary cycle. STOP IT!

#russia #ukraine #ukraine war #russian invasion #marxism leninism #putin #russian coup #wagner #coup attempt #aleksandr lukashenko #nato #war propaganda #you are not immune to propaganda #controversy #geopolitics #politics #communism #socialism #capitalism #fascism

[jazuthevulcanprincess]

Silco thought he could do literally anything to achieve power, and use that power to make Zaun a sovereign nation. But, the moment Jinx tackled him in a hug and basically asked him to care for her, he lost.

We see him look shocked, and then look up at Vander. Likely, he was empathizing with Powder saying "she is not my sister" and applying it to Vander's betrayal and his own feelings about him after. He chose to accept this child who was like him and decided to give her what he had needed when he was in her shoes. "We will show them all" being his promise; that they both will abandon fear and become strong enough to achieve their dreams.

We see it in Jinx's eye when she looks up from his arm, determination to prove that she is better than Milo said, that she can be strong, she wants to be useful and "ready" so no one will leave her behind like Vi did.

Yet, she also has the weight of her entire murdered family. She internalized from Vi's words and abandonment that she truly is a jinx, and therefore she must be bad. Which I think is why she allies with Silco and his gang, because she basically already worked for him by killing Milo and Claggor, and preventing Vander's successful escape. They all would have left and been fine had she not interfered and she knows that. Just like she never forgot what Silco had done. But, they were the same and she chose him as a father figure.

We don't see Silco be physically affectionate or let his guard down with anyone but Jinx later on, which makes me believe more that him allowing Powder to hug him and holding her isn't normal for him. He could have killed her instead like he planned.

Instead, he fully brings her into his confidence and makes her his family, a daughter to replace the brother he lost perhaps. Every human being needs companionship and Silco is not different just because he does horrible shit. He's human and has human psychology. Them showing Silco has Jinx help *stab him in the eye* regularly shows that she is uniquely close, no one did that before, and he has a hard time without her help.

When Jinx is triggered by her experiment with the hex gemstone, where does she go? To Silco's office. He tells her he can't trust anyone else with building the weapon that will win the war and make their future better. She is his #1, Sevika his #2 as the brothel madam says to Vi. But, she is special.

When Sevika fails, she gets a professional reprimand, and when Jinx hits Piltover he confronts her like an enraged parent. He doesn't hit her like you would expect from someone so regularly violent. And she doesn't seem bothered at all. I think she doesn't regularly get consequences, citing Sevika, Finn, and Rennie's criticism of Silco and how he can't control Jinx, and how that has made him weak and unfit to lead.

Sevika says she is bad for their cause and she is right. Silco ignores or shuts down these criticisms and its unusual because he's is a cutthroat man with a one track mind: to defeat Piltover.

If he was using Jinx for that end, manipulating her as is so often said, he isn't doing a good job. If he was using her and shaping her, she would be his ace, the linchpin in his plan to rule Zaun. She would be his perfect soldier.

But she isn't. She's a liability. All we see is him encourage her, remind her that Vi is gone and can no longer control her or hurt her, he is there to help her, and he thinks she's perfect. That's a father.

Granted, he isn't well versed in mental health so his solution to Jinx's triggers is to give her a baptism so "fear of pain" won't control her; that was his solution so he think it will work for her..

He doesn't know what we know, that PTSD can't be solved by a dip in polluted waters. It's all he can do, however. And protecting Jinx from further trauma by eliminating her sister before she finds out she's back isn't something any of us would do, but it makes sense for his character. He kills problems. He's not gonna set up family counseling for them.

He believes Vi can only hurt Jinx, like Vander hurt him, and Jinx is currently unstable so she can't handle the stress of it. It's not healthy, but that's Zaun.

He also raised her and encouraged her "gadgetry", pushes her to relax with her hobbies and take some time when stressed. He raised her to be strong and raised her to survive in Zaun, so explosives and guns are part of that. She was working on them with Vander and Vi too, and Milo thought she should brawl with them.

The only extra violence he allows Jinx is the same coping mechanism he has of brutalizing people to feel good. If he does it, you expect him to teach her differently? Which is why he isn't an ideal father figure. But, he is the best father he knew how to be.

This is shown to us in the little details of the mug and ashtray we see that Jinx made for him, being on display at all times. He is saying he is proud of her. Even though it doesn't fit his kingpin persona. It's shown in how Jinx goes to him for support, how she wants to make him proud, and how she challenges him like when she mocks his drowning story and his "rants and hard earned lessons". Jinx is comfortable and safe with him, and has agency in their relationship. She disobeys when she deems necessary, like children do.

When we see Silco find Jinx on the bridge, he is stunned and horrified by her injury. When he sees the gemstone in her hand, he has a peculiar blank expression I didn't know how to read at first. But, I think it is the beginning of his realization that he can't sacrifice her for the cause. He thought he could lose /anything/ for power. But, he sees the gemstone, and at the same time the voice over has Cait saying "so it was all for nothing" and I think that's on purpose. If he gains the gemstone at the price of his daughter's life, well its worth nothing to him. And I think that feeling does scare him.

Singed later asks if he is willing to lose her and he can't answer, just says with determination that she can't die, like he won't let her by sheer force of will. Him giving her a forehead kiss, and only on the strap no less, his supposed to show he cares for her, even when he has nothing to gain but her life. Singed sees his love and has to sedate him because he understands.

Silcos character arc wraps up in the dinner scene where he reassures her that she is his daughter and he could never forsake her, which he knows to be true now that he couldn't give her up for Zaun. He isn't mad he's tied up, and he isn't angry when she shoots him. His last words are an affirmation of love, and a plea to be strong.

His character arc culminates in him thinking about protecting someone more than accomplishing his dream. Which is what he hated Vander for. He was undone by having a daughter, like Vander was. He dies a father doing what was best for his daughter. Like Vander did. He finally understands why Vander did what he did, and that family, that Jinx, is worth more than anything.

#silco #silco arcane #jinx #jinx arcane #arcane meta #silco and jinx #jinx and silco #thanks for coming to my TED talk #i was posessed to write this in one sitting so its not entirely coherent but i hope someone out there understands what i saw #i am talking about the choices i think the WRITERS made and silco as a narrative #not how people would look at silco irl and see whatever they think #i think this is what the writers intented for his character and this is how i interpret him

[lynnpaper]

idk if you’re still taking prompts but if you are: can you do “there’s something on your shirt. you—that’s blood!” and/or “let’s get you cleaned up and in bed” with anakin and ahsoka?? 💖💖💖💖 love your hurt/comfort with these two

from these prompts

i can, i hope, do that. 💕

read it on AO3

The gunship jolts and Ahsoka stumbles, her knuckles whitening as she grips the handhold tighter. She is nowhere as tall as the clones or her master—her arm aches where she has to stretch to reach it.

Too long—they’ve been here too long. Haven’t slept for too long. Haven’t eaten for too long.

“Careful,” Anakin says. He places a hand on her shoulder, as if it will steady her at all. If he looks hard enough, he can almost see her adrenaline crashing, see the exhaustion sinking into her bones with every passing second.

Hold on, he thinks, but doesn’t say it out loud, because of course Ahsoka doesn’t want the rest of the 501st to hear the admission that she’s only barely holding it together right now. The last thing she needs is a group of overprotective vod’e fawning over their little commander, or having to witness Anakin literally tear her out of their overprotective arms.

Not that she wouldn’t appreciate it, but—

The gunship jolts again. Ahsoka winces, staggering in place. Before she can lose her grip on the handhold, an arm slides its way around her waist, tugging her against a solid, warm body, still smelling of scored carbon and engine grease and ozone.

Anakin keeps his eyes trained on the wall opposite, but Ahsoka looks at him gratefully, leaning into his side.

Then the brightness of the hangar sparks a new headache behind her eyes, and she’s walking down the ramp on shaky legs, and one of her sabers is bumping against a bruise on her thigh which isn’t as painful as it should be. She stands beside Anakin with her hands clasped behind her back (to hide the way they tremble, of course) as he debriefs his men and gives the final orders for ship maintenance and repairs, but nothing truly sticks.

She counts to four-hundred-and-twenty-seven before Anakin turns to look at her at last.

“Ahsoka?” he presses. He raises a hand and snaps it a couple times in front of her face.

Ahsoka sways a little, blinking dazedly, and Anakin wraps his hands around each of her arms before she can topple.

He slowly leads her back to his quarters, a palm pressed between her shoulder blades. It must be a little uncomfortable; cold durasteel under a glove. But when Anakin takes his hand away in the middle of a crowded corridor, she stops and looks up at him with a puzzled expression, and it is only when he replaces it and gently nudges her forward again that she gathers enough thought to move her legs once more.

The realisation hits him far too slowly—that he overlooked this, that she’s so tired that she’s conserving her strength just to walk, and he’d gone ahead and yelled at her to keep up while blaster bolts rained down on them from all different directions.

Anakin leaves her halfway to unconsciousness on the couch in his quarters. He finds clothes for her in her room, padawan tunics and robes she never wears, in a drawer she never touches. Ahsoka would never ask for him to take the trouble, or to go out of his way to coddle her, except he’s not—it’s not coddling. And it’s no trouble at all.

When he returns, she hasn’t moved at all, save for her head slumped against the armrest.

It must be a violation of multiple galactic laws to wake her.

Anakin taps her shoulder once, twice. Ahsoka scrunches her face in displeasure before turning her head away and sluggishly blinking awake again. Her gaze lands on the bundle of clothes under his arm, and Anakin can almost feel the needle of guilt worming its way into her chest.

Anakin searches her vacant expression for any sign of his words registering at all, and finds none.

He hopes she doesn’t hear him sigh inwardly. “Lets clean you up and get you to bed, okay?”

Ahsoka nods faintly.

Maybe he should be concerned that she does not protest when he all but drags her to his room, retrieves a damp washcloth from the fresher, and sits on the edge of the bed so he’s level with her before wiping the dirt and grime from her face. Ahsoka keeps her eyes trained on the far wall, closing them when the cloth brushes too close to her eyelids, flinching when it rubs against the cut on her brow—which he’d missed previously, because it had been obscured by more dirt.

Anakin sighs.

Ahsoka shies away, pushing at his hand weakly. Force, if he doesn’t want to waste his time doing this then he shouldn’t. She can manage herself—

“Hey,” Anakin says sternly, catching her wrist.

She risks a glance up at him, tracking the bits of dirt staining the cloth in his hand, and a more vibrant spot of almost-dry blood. The last thing she wants is for Anakin to be acting out of a… misguided sense of duty, or something.

“Stop that,” Anakin says.

Ahsoka huffs.

“You’re thinking very loudly.” Anakin gently turns her head with a finger against her jaw, rubbing at a spot on her lek, and she shivers. “Okay?” he asks, gentler this time.

Ahsoka nods. The washcloth touches her face once more.

Anakin loses track of how long his padawan stands there, dead on her feet. At some point her fingers close around his arm as her legs threaten to give out again, and he pulls her forward as gently as he can, trying to remember how they got here in the first place.

The clasp on her belt is easy to undo, but he knows she would probably fumble with it in her state. Anakin debates helping her peel off the rest of her clothes altogether, stained with the red dust from the ground of the planet they’d come from.

But—yes. No. Yes. Her dignity can wait, he thinks. Sleep cannot, and neither can his nerves. It’s not selfish, he tries to convince himself, that he wants her to be clean and comfortable before she sleeps— and she doesn’t have to be clean to be comfortable, but it certainly helps—

Anakin reaches for the fabric bunched at her waist before his mind can go to battle with itself. It’s not as if he hasn’t seen it all already—there is no dignity in war, or in makeshift medbays on desolate planets, or in transparent bacta tanks. Still, he turns her around before pulling her tunic over her shoulders—if he can preserve a little bit of what they will all lose inevitably then he will—and looks away to take a clean tunic from the pile, keeping his hands far from her body as he hands it to her and she slips her arms through the sleeves.

Still, Ahsoka doesn’t complain or even try to cover herself—Anakin wonders if she even cares, and if it should worry him if she doesn’t. She’s a teenager, and teenagers are supposed to care about things like this.

But she will never really have a chance to be a teenager. She does not act like one at all, sometimes—a soldier, perhaps, but not a child.

It’s difficult to tamp down on the dread in his gut when he wraps a hand around her upper arm and his fingers very nearly overlap. Military rations will never be enough.

He turns her around again and she follows without thinking, and then there’s the warm numbness of bacta on the cut on her forehead and the soft familiarity of a palm on her cheek, and the resounding rush of warmth comes with a rush of momentary coherence.

Ahsoka blinks again, almost as if she’s blinking tears away, as if she is only now realising that the firm pressure on her back had been his palm, and the gentle nudges had been his hand, and the fleeting loneliness of Anakin leaving her in his quarters had only been an excuse for him to retrieve her kriffing clothes. “Master. I apologise, I—”

Oh, this again.

“Shh,” Anakin whispers.

“You don’t need to—”

“Quiet, Ahsoka.” I apologise is the first thing she’s said since they returned, and his chest tightens because it is, of course, an apology. Ahsoka only apologises when she has nothing else to say, or when she feels that she’s done something wrong—which she hasn’t—so really he should be the one apologising for taking forever to get to her in the first place—

“I’m sorry,” she says again, and a flicker of surprise flits across her face, as if she cannot believe the betrayal of her own voice against her.

“Boots,” Anakin replies, instead of it’s alright; don’t apologise; you’ve nothing to be sorry for.

Ahsoka tugs them off and dumps them unceremoniously at the foot of the bed. With the realisation of what she’s just done—as well as its implications—comes a confused frown, furrowing its way onto her brow. “Am I—” she glances around the room, like she hasn’t seen it a hundred and one times already. The weariness is back, ebbing from the curl of her fingers beside her aching thighs, slipping from the effort it takes to keep her eyes open.

“Yes,” Anakin says.

Her shoulders slump in relief.

It’s times like this that Anakin wishes he’d never lost his hand—pulling the blanket over her thighs, where he knows she very cleverly managed to hide a couple of bruises, as his palm lingers on her too-small shoulder. He wishes he could feel more than her pulse under the sensors of his durasteel fingers.

“Don’t need to fuss,” Ahsoka says distantly, more to herself than Anakin, who pulls the blanket over her shoulders just as she tucks her chin closer to her chest.

Tired, her mind supplies unhelpfully.

Anakin folds the blanket under her lek. “You did very well today,” he whispers.

It is one thing to understand she has done well. An undeniable claim, if the remnants of those droids littering the ground had anything to prove. But to hear it from him—

“Thank you,” Ahsoka says.

A heavy hand settles on her shoulder, over the blanket. The weight grounds her, the pillow a fraction softer under her mildly spinning head.

Ahsoka hums softly, lashes fluttering. You did very well.

I know, she thinks. I know.

#lynn writes #my writing #post-trauma sentence starters #snips and skyguy #hurt/comfort #writing prompts

[probably-haven]

A bit ago, I saw a reblog(wasnt sure if u were comfortable with me tagging you or not) of my first Archon War Era Venti post that asked how I came up with the phrases, so I figure I could explain those two and maybe construct a few more sayings or language things from the archon war as another example.

So for the first one "a riptide of mortal blood". I started out with an intention, wanting to display the violent nature of the archon war so I knew I wanted the saying to have something to do with blood. And since a lot of Venti's character tends to blue the lines between mortality I wanted to stress the fact that he is very much immortal. This is where the distinction between ichor and mortal blood was formed. And because apples are a simple thing, after a few tries I decided the meaning of the phrase would have to do with insignificance.

So I had a few components at my disposal- ichor, mortal blood, violent origins, and insignificance. So to stress insignificance by distinguishing mortality from immortality I looked at a few options. An event, a technique, a saying, a misunderstanding, an object, a person, a simplification, and just general morbidity that could have occurred, since these are where idioms and sayings often come from. And I came up with the idea of slaughtering mortal followers(inspired by the idea of burning and salting crops during invasions).

So then I played around with the order of the words for a bit, dwelling on "outweighed" and "balance" and "spiralling" before eventually my mind focused on the modern phrase "the tides of war" and other variations. And since blood is liquid and all, I decided to use a water metaphore. Then It just came down to refinement and expansion

Ichor washed out by mortal blood/the finest ichor (erosion synonym)/ the thickest ichor/strongest/purest(I did like this one cuz of the simultaneous blood purity connotations)/ and eventually settled on "most potent ichor"

And then I brought up power thesaurus and looked up a bunch of synonyms for tide- like current, waves(waves of battle made this one tempting), dam(breaking dam and similar metaphors), leak, and eventually settled on riptide for the more dangerous vibes it gives off.

Then came the joiner- again, I sorted through a lot of things like outweighed, imbalanced, overcome, drowned, squandered, hidden, but then I remembered a thing about sharks smelling blood diffused into an Olympic swimming pool or something like that so I latched onto the word and there you have it

"Even the most potent of ichor diffuses amongst the riptide of mortal blood"

-

"Storm of many clouds" was on the spot because I was like 'oh I should get something from Decarabian's era. Oh storm god! Wow team work! Sounds like a song lyric or something so hard could have said it, lmao clouds go brrrrrrr. And threw that one together so I'm not all that proud of it, especially since I used the same "noun of adjective noun" structure as the first one which was kind of repetitive on my part but oh well! Onto the next one!

-

So examining our options we have: An event, a technique, a saying, a misunderstanding, a simplification, an object, a person, and just general morbidity that could have occurred. And keep in mind that a lot of sayings come from either metaphors, or from literal sayings losing their meanings.

So what we do then is put yourself in the context of the archon war and start listing the things mentioned before, brainstorming different things that could fit into our option categories. And while you're at it and thinking of imagery, brainstorm associated words.

Event: Sal Vindagnir, Fall of Decarabian, A specific alliance, A specific betrayal, salt goddess's fall, guizhong's death

Technique: (I could brainstorm for hours don't tempt me)

Saying: (hard to brainstorm if you don't actually know any- sayings that can be shortened)

Misunderstanding: a God's powers, who did certain things, intentions behind an action, false evidence, divine manipulation

Objects: temples, altars, sacrifices, divine weapons, specific powers

Person: Guizhong, Salt Goddess, Xiao's God person, the Yakshas, adepti, Decarabian, Andrius, Barbatos, Celestia

Morbidity: God's revived through karma, executions

Words: Fire, steel, heavenly principles,

So I could probably keep brainstorming but let's look at what we have and pull out some favorites. For now I'm going to focus on "a betrayal"

now I'm not sure if we know any specific instances of betrayal during the archon war, but if there were, there could be a saying or phrase in which people would refer to someone who seemed shady or untrustworthy with a phrase like "they could be a [insert name of whoever the betrayer was]" which many idioms are actually oddly short like "loophole" which came from holes in walls that archers would use but that were big enough for small people to sneak into place through.

-

That's simple though so let's make another

This time we'll focus on gods revived through karma

so Xiao’s story describes these as “countless manifestations of their vengeful remnant souls, but in doing so, he caused these souls to become increasingly fractured”

so we can latch onto a few things from this: “souls” and the idea of broken things persisting

now- there will be an initial phrase or idea and then a simplified version

so as the origin: dead god’s who after being slayed had a vengeance that continued burning so brightly that their soul continually returned to the material plane only to be fractured time and time again. 

now how can we painfully over simplify this to make it apply to normal life. 

replace a few terms and frame them as concepts:

[people] [defeat/offended/minor inconvenience] [a reoccurring thing] [annoyance] [persistence] 

so whatever this phrase ends up being- it can end up referring to a minor inconvenience that just refuses to go away. 

and now to pick out words and make the actual phrase

so we already have some strong words in the previous description: soul, fractured, dead gods, vengence/vengeful. but lets add some more descriptive terms to stress the violent nature of the saying’s origins: slaughtered, divinity, revived, vestigous, wrath

and lets puzzle piece these words together- (wheeze- this is so much easier if i let myself use the word “of”

“vengeance-sworn soul”/ “divity’s shattered/fragmented will”/ “lingering vestige of slaughter”

and now to use filler words because these dont really make sense

“divity’s fragmented souls shall carry on through unending slaughter”

which i could probably go back and make it sound better, but it seems very human to refer to that fly thats been in your room for the past week as an “unending slaughter” or a “fractured divinity” or something so- yeah- 

its not my best work but thats the gist of how i come up with them. 

-

if anyone who happens to see this wants to try their hand at archon war sayings then feel free because i just think this kind of thing is fascinating

#genshin impact #genshin venti #archon war era venti #technically i never finished or finalized the last phrase but that's fine #its just a pretty large amount of work making them sound decent so- #it doesnt sound as cool but the idea of analyzing the origins of certain phrase or idioms and creating them is kinda fun

[fatesdeepdive]

Entry 8: Rinkah’s Burning Loins

My Castle

After fully dedicating ourselves to Hoshido, the game finally really begins. We’re given access to a customizable castle in the Astral Plane where our army waits between battles. We can talk to our units, giving them minor stat boosts or new weapons. Right off the bat, we have a farm and spring to give us resources, rooms for Corrin and Lilith, and a Hall of Records.

In Lilith’s spring, we can feed her to make her level up. Different foods affect her stats in different ways. Note that, although Lilith now has stats, she isn’t usable in battle. Other players can invade our Castle through spotpass, which I’ll discuss in a later entry, and Lilith is only usable in those battles.

Lilith

Lilith is a weird squirrel dragon thing that floats around clutching a random ball. She used to be our stable girl and is now our pet. I think she has a crush on Corrin. Her design is unique and cute, I like it. Gameplay wise, she can only use a modified Physic staff. I don’t dislike her personality, but she feels like a throwaway character added at the last minute. She raises a ton of questions that I doubt will ever be answered.

In the Hall of Records, we can see descriptions of all the units we’ll ever recruit, rewatch cutscenes, read unreadable poems, and play around with a relationship tester. The relationship tester is randomized, by the way, which kinda makes it pointless. That said, it told me that Corrin expects betrayal from Rinkah, while Rinkah’s loins are set afire by Corrin. This is now canon, I have decided.

In Corrin’s room, we can change their hairstyle and invite an ally over to chill. I chose Kaze. He complimented Corrin’s piano skills, which she apparently has, then stared at us, blushing, while thanking us for saving him from Garon.

So, let’s talk about the elephant in the room. In the Japanese version you get to rub units while in close up mode. Like Pokemon Amie except...with people. This was removed in the English version. A lot of Fire Emblem fans were pissed, crying about censorship because Nintendo of America had the gall to remove the minigame where you rub Camila’s tiddies while she moans. And I’m going to say a hot take right now: they made the right call. That stuff was weird and indulgent. It was the living embodiment of the fanservice focussed design that plagues modern Fire Emblem games. Good riddance.

Inviting allies to Corrin’s cool sex treehouse boosts our support levels. I suppose it's time I mentioned that. In Fire Emblem games, units form bonds from fighting next to each other, unlocking short conversations that flesh them out as characters. Units also fight together better when they have high supports. Now, here’s the fun thing about supports:

There are more than 600 supports in this game. Not support conversations, support lines, each of which is made up of three or four conversations. And, because God has cursed me for my hubris and my work is never finished, I’m going to read all of them.

Admittedly, I’m not going to unlock all of them. S-Rank conversations result in marriages and each unit only gets one. It’d take a few dozen playthroughs to get all of Corrin’s S-Rank conversations and I don’t hate myself that much, so I’m reading the transcripts from the wiki. I think I’m going to do four supports per Entry; that’ll leave me with a few extra by the time we reach the end, but I’ll just do a support grab bag entry or something.

Before we do supports, let’s finish up improving the castle. I built a weapon shop and a statue of Corrin that boosts her max speed. We are limited on the number of buildings we can build, but that isn’t a big deal yet because the only other option was to build a stave shop.

Support: Corrin/Rinkah

C: Corrin attempts to discuss battle tactics with Rinkah, but Rinkah blows her off and tells her to stop trying to be friends. Rinkah does acknowledge that Corrin’s authority and that Corrin saved her life, but tells the princess leave her alone.

B: Corrin pesters Rinkah until she explains why she’s so aloof. Rinkah explains that, the Flame Tribe keeps a great flame burning in the center of the village to honor the God of Fire. In the past, outsiders have extinguished the fire. One such instance was followed by a volcanic eruption that decimated the tribe. As a rule, the people of the Flame Tribe are wary of outsiders. Rinkah also explains that she’s working for Hoshido because her father commanded her to, much to her chagrin.

A: Rinkah explains that she would have preferred to die an honorable warrior’s death than be captured and resents Corrin for sparing her. Corrin says that she’s glad Rinkah is still alive, because it means Rinkah and her can be friends. Corrin also says that, despite the chaos of war, she believes in fate and its ability to bring people together. Corrin encourages Rinkah to use this opportunity to learn more about the outside world and bring that knowledge home with her. Rinkah begrudgingly agrees.

This is how the conversation will end on my playthrough, but if Corrin has a penis, you can get an S-Rank proposal conversation. I’ll be listing all of these off along with the normal conversations.

S: Rinkah comes to Corrin, blushing, and tells him that he has been a constant reminder of her shame and regret over being captured. But, over time, these feelings were replaced with love. Love that she hated, because Corrin is an outsider. Corrin says that he’s loved Rinkah since the day they met and only told her to be friendly to other people as an excuse to spend time with her. Rinkah states that, from now on, she will remember her capture as the happiest day of her life and the two get married.

Review: I really like this support line. It expands Rinkah’s backstory and culture, ties it into Corrin’s own isolation and belief in fate, and deals with the tumultuous meeting they had in Chapter 2. The confession comes out of nowhere, admittedly, but I do like Rinkah grappling with her mixed feelings of hate and love. Solid support.

Support: Corrin/Jakob

C: Corrin comes to Jakob to ask for a favor. Jakob interrupts her by humorously listing off the things he would do for Corrin. Things like slay dragons for her, which is actually kinda offensive now that I think about it. Corrin begs Jakob to allow her to be independent and Jakob refuses. Corrin explains that she’s his boss and he tells her that servitude is his reason for living. Jakob explains that, when he started working for Corrin, he was incompetent, and her kindness towards him made him indebted to her. The two compromise on the agreement that Jakob will teach Corrin how to make tea. After Corrin leaves, Jakob mumbles to himself that things might get apocalyptic.

B: Corrin repeatedly tries and fails to make a decent cup of tea. Both of them get some funny lines in, with Corrin telling Jakob that she can’t hear him because she’s ignoring him and Jakob saying that, saying that they’ll run out of leaves before Corrin makes decent tea. They meaning the nation in this case. Corrin eventually makes a passable cup, after Jakob secretly adds in sugar.

A: Jakob admits to Corrin that he messed with her tea and she laughs it off, admitting that she knew all along. She apologizes for being stubborn and accepts that she still needs Jakob’s help sometimes. Jakob says that he falls apart without Corrin. Corrin says that the two of them are alike in that way and Jakob literally faints from joy.

S: Jakob is acting more distant than normal. When Corrin asks him about this, he admits that he’s fallen for her and resigns from his duties as butler, because it is improper for him to have feelings for his mistress. Corrin begs him to say because she needs him and admits that she loves him too. The two of them get embarrassed and Corrin fires Jakob, giving him the new job of husband.

Review: This was a hilarious support that really made me appreciate Jakob’s snarky yet loyal personality. He is the perfect butler. The conflict of Corrin wanting to be independent and Jakob wanting to take care of her is a good dynamic that made me appreciate the relationship between these two characters. I do like them more as a platonic couple than a romantic one, but Jakob quitting his job because falling in love with Corrin is improper is a nice character moment.

Support: Corrin/Kaze

C: A villager gives Kaze a bunch of radishes because he’s super hot. And I mean, he is. Kaze apparently doesn’t realize that he’s hot until Corrin explains it to him. Kaze mentions that he dislikes the attention because he isn’t a good person before running off.

B: Corrin asks Kaze to follow her around so she can figure out what’s bothering him. Kaze says no, so Corrin annoys him until he agrees to hang out with him. Then he runs away again.

A: Kaze admits to Corrin that it was his fault that Garon kidnapped her, because when he was a child, he noticed the Nohrian soldiers that killed Sumeragi were in the city but said nothing about it. I don’t know how that makes Corrin’s kidnapping his fault, you’d expect there to be soldiers guarding a king. And the fact that Kaze was there means that there were also Hoshido soldiers, which means there was no reason to be suspicious of the Nohrians. Also, Kaze was a teenager at the oldest, so he should probably get some leeway. Whatever. Kaze apologizes to Corrin and Corrin, in turn, apologizes for making him live with guilt for fifteen years. Corrin also points out that Kaze led her home, meaning that they’re even now. Kaze compares Corrin to Mikoto because of her kindness and pledges to serve Corrin as her loyal retainer.

S: Corrin and Kaze joke around about Corrin’s kidnapping. It’s cute. Corrin mentions that, now that she’s spent so much time offscreen with Kaze, she likes him even more. Kaze blurts out that he loves Corrin, despite being her bodyguard, and the two propose.

Review: I found this chain a bit lacking, to be honest. The first two conversations were filler and the origin for Kaze’s guilt complex is kinda dumb. Kaze’s relationship with Corrin defines him as a character. He is so guilt ridden over her kidnapping that he would betray his country and his family to protect her. Later parts of the game hinge on this relationship. But, three of their four conversations are dull. I do like Kaze’s guilt complex as a concept, and think becoming Corrin’s retainer alongside Jakob and/or Felicia and a way to repent, but it isn’t enough to save this support line.

Support: Kaze/Rinkah

C: Kaze gets a bunch of candy for being hot and shares it with Rinkah, who secretly loves candy.

B: Kaze continues to give Rinkah candy.

A: Kaze continues to give Rinkah candy.

S: Kaze reveals that he’s been giving Rinkah candy because he’s in love with her.

Review: This one was a big let down. The fact that Kaze and Rinkah are introduced together made me think it would be about their capture, but no. It’s just Kaze giving Rinkah candy for four conversations straight. And it’s cute fluff, but it’s nothing more than that. There is something interesting below the surface with Rinkah hiding her love of candy to protect her image, but it’s never really explored.

So, off to a mixed start with the support conversations.

Birthright Chapter 7: A Vow Upheld

Team Corrin heads to a Hoshidan fort where Sakura is tending to wounded soldiers. We are introduced to Sakura’s retainers, Subaki and Hana. Suddenly, the fort is attacked by Nohrian forces. Corrin and Azura point out the ridiculousness of them attacking immediately after they arrived. Sakura freaks out because the fort is being used as a hospital and has no military value. So apparently Nohr is now being evil just to be evil.

Subaki and Hana agree to help Corrin defend the fort and argue over who’s more important to Sakura, much to her annoyance. Subaki and Hana give me a good opportunity to discuss a few interesting things about classes in this game. First off, unlike in most Fire Emblem games, classes are NOT gender-specific, as demonstrated by Subaki being the first male Pegasus Knight in the series. Secondly, the classic Fire Emblem classes were divided between the two nations. Nohr got Mercenaries, Hoshido got Myrmidons. Nohr got Wyvern Riders, Hoshido got Pegasus Knights. Etc. I really like this, it gives the two countries different feels in combat both aesthetically and mechanically. Finally, a lot of Hoshidan classes were renamed to be more Eastern, shown by Hana being a Samurai instead of a Myrmidon, or by Sakura being a Shrine Maiden instead of a Cleric.

Subaki

Subaki is a Sky Knight, this game’s equivalent of a Pegasus Knight. He can fly over terrain and has good speed and resistance, but is decimated by arrows. His personal skill buffs his hit and avoid when he has full health. Design wise, I like how ridiculously smug he looks. Personality wise, he seems over-competitive yet fiercely loyal to Sakura.

Hana

Hana is a Samurai with high speed and skill. Her personal skill damaged nearby enemies when she scores a kill. Her design is fine, if a little bland. Personality wise, she seems over-competitive yet fiercely loyal to Sakura.

Starting with this chapter, we have a prep menu, where we can choose which units to use and rearrange them on the map. We can bring our whole team in with us, so it’s a little pointless, but it's nice. Worth noting that you can have units start in pair up via this menu, unlike in Awakening where you had to pair them up after the battle started.

At the start of the battle, the chapter’s boss, a Cavalier named Silas, shouts out to Corrin that he’s her childhood best friend. She does not remember him even slightly. Okie dokie.

This map is decent. It’s a bit short, but it features a lot of good bottlenecks. The Dragon Veins can be used to open heal tiles, which is a bit pointless because you have two healers. When Silas and Corrin fight, he reiterates that they used to be friends. Corrin says that she can’t remember her past. And that confuses me, because I was under the impression that she got amnesia when she was taken to Nohr, which would have been before she met Silas. Unless he’s lying.

After the battle, Corrin refuses to kill Silas. She interrogates him about why he was so hesitant to attack them and he explains that, when they were children, he helped Corrin sneak out of the walls to have a picnic. The guards tried to execute Silas for this, but Corrin stopped them, because apparently guards listen to small children. Because of this, Silas feels he owes a debt to Corrin.

Question. Why was this random child allowed to play with the super secret hostage princess? Whatever.

Corrin eventually recovers a vague memory of Silas and asks him to join the gang. She explains that Garon is crazy and evil and that’s enough to make him swap sides. Silas is now officially the most sane character in the game. I mean, he should have probably realized this stuff before being sent to destroy a hospital for shits and giggles, but still.

Also, Silas mentions that Corrin’s favorite food is surf and turf. Perhaps this symbolizes how Corrin is stuck between both kingdoms? Or maybe it’s a random throwaway line. You be the judge!

At the end of the chapter, Saizo and a new character named Orochi show up, wounded, and report that Takumi and Ryoma have gone missing. Uh oh.

Team Corrin decide to help search for the missing princes. Sakura decides to come along, despite Corrin and Kaze’s objections. Silas also decides to come along and Saizo points out that he totally could be a spy or traitor. He’s a dick, but he is infinitely smarter than Kaze.

#fire emblem fates #fire emblem birthright #fe14 #fire emblem #hoshido #nohr #corrin fe #kaze fe #corrin x kaze #corrin x rinkah #rinkah fe #rinkah x kaze #silas fe #jakob fe #corrin x jakob #hana fe #subaki fe

[hyena-frog]

I personally don't understand people who think that Virginia 'can't win on her own'. As if she has to prove herself or she is 'too nice' and has to learn 'how to violence'. Just because Sevro's solution for everything is cutting some fingers or worse, doesn't mean he is always right or that Mustang's work to keep that balance and play within the designated lines is not badass or interesting. She is the only demokratic ruler and her own people gave her absolute power of decision making to end the war at any cost. What's not great about that!?

If Virginia was indeed 'too nice', she would have perished long ago - last absolute cinnamon roll we saw was Julian and we all know what Society thinks about people like him. Just because she plays by the rules, doesn't mean she has no claws - she wiped a terrorist's memories away for fuck's sake. Now that the rules have been extended, you can bet your ass that she'll take more than one page out of Nero's playbook. After all, she said it herself, she tamed herself, but it's fun to let the lion out.

Agreed 110%! I don't understand people who give Virginia shit in general tbh. I mean, how do you not fall in love with her immediately? How are you not ride or die for her from the get-go? It boggles the mind.

Those arguments, being "too nice" or being unable to win on her own, are reaching and easily debunkable. The lack of reading comprehension. 😒 If you don't like her, then whatever. I may not understand how that’s possible, but it really isn’t necessary to make shit up, you know?

Virginia can't win on her own, huh. The nerve! Where would Darrow be without her? Dead. Many times over. He would have bled out after Cassius stabbed him if Virginia hadn't helped him. And it was Virginia who brought the Howlers back from the Rim weeks in advance of Darrow actually needing them, just in case. So many things would have gone wrong in Morning Star if she wasn't at Darrow's side (and if Ragnar hadn't gone out of his way to make sure she'd be there, the absolute legend).

Perhaps it's Darrow who can't win on his own? But that sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? All of his successes were achieved through teamwork. Darrow acknowledges this many times. It's the same for Virginia. While it's simply not true that she can't win on her own, it’s also untrue that the inability to win on your own is a bad thing. The whole argument doesn’t make any sense.

The idea Virginia still needs to “prove” herself despite doing so plenty of times already throughout the series is frustrating. The fact of the matter is, the success of the Rising relies just as heavily on Virginia's intelligence as it does Darrow's battle skills. The Solar Republic simply wouldn't exist without her. Fitchner never had a clear vision of what "after the Society" would look like and neither did Darrow for a long time. The war effort needs a conscience and a vision for the future, otherwise it's just endless bloodshed. Virginia helps Darrow see beyond the bloodshed. Plus, Darrow has no interest in politics. He'd be the first to admit he’s not good at the slow game of political maneuvering. But Virginia thrives in that environment. In Dark Age, Darrow even admits his current predicament is a consequence of not trusting his wife's way of running the Republic, and he vows never to do that again.

Sure, Virginia doesn't get into physical fights often, especially now that she is Sovereign. But politics is no less perilous a battlefield. I feel like because the political battlefield isn't as flashy and fast paced as a literal one, people forget the constant danger she is in, even before the Senate's betrayal. Silenius' Stiletto is a delicate tightrope act she has to perform every day to drag progress forward while keeping her opponents in check. This requires a level of self-restraint, clear-headedness, and badassery, that no other character can achieve.

Virginia is not "too nice." She is practical. And often, is it practical to play nice. Not every confrontation is best solved through violence Sevro. We all know the line: Virginia is the mustang that nuzzles the hand; people know they can work with her. That’s why the people chose her consistently for ten years, over literally everyone else in the solar system, to run this new government. And her steadfast resolve to gain Imperium legally, to not force her will on the people, proved to them again that she won’t abuse this ultimate power to end the war.

No, Virginia may be reasonable but that doesn't mean she is too nice. If she was too nice, she wouldn't have used her relationship with Cassius to protect her family. She wouldn't have shot Cassius in the throat with an arrow. She wouldn't have promised Ephraim he would "die shitting in a foreign bed" if he skipped about on their bargain to return the kids. She wouldn't have zapped the Duke of Hands' entire personality from his head. Like you said, she never would have made it this far if she was truly toothless. She's practical, and sometimes the practical solution doesn't require violence, but creative thinking.

Speaking of creative thinking, one thing Virginia doesn’t get nearly enough credit for is abolishing the death penalty immediately after Adrius was hanged. That wasn't her being "too nice" or too lenient on her caste. Yes, she feels life in prison is the moral option over the death penalty. But she knows her people. The punishment for the worst criminals in Deepgrave is a Gold's worst nightmare. Life in prison denies a Gold their desire for a glorious death, to be remembered through the ages for their deeds in battle. The Republic's justice system sends a clear message: "Mess with us, and you won't get your notoriety or fame, you'll only get obscurity and shame and sucking algae through a tube until you die naturally of old age." That to me is crueler than hanging.

Virginia’s mind is her greatest weapon, but more than that, her greatest strength is how she applies her intelligence. Her ability to read people, and to communicate, is greatly underappreciated imo. These skills require nonviolent interaction yet they yield great results. There are many examples of this. She used her natural charisma to gain Octavia's trust. She brokered an alliance with the Rim when she thought Darrow was dead. She held the Republic together for ten years despite constant, increasing animosity from the Vox. She refused to torture Lyria and was able to see she was not lying about being an unwitting pawn in the kidnapping scheme and was rewarded with information and a new ally. She figured out exactly what Sefi was planning for Cimmeria, even manipulating the situation to her advantage without Sefi realizing it. She knew Victra was going to bargain with Sefi for the kids, without being told. In her own words, this is simply what she does.

There is a quote in Iron Gold that caught my eye: "Communication is the soul of civilization." (532) Now, this line has nothing directly to do with Virginia. This is Ephraim trying to get a rise out of Gorgo. But it fits Virginia perfectly, doesn’t it? The Republic is able to exist as a civilization because it has such an amazing communicator at its center.

Virginia is such an excellent communicator that she is even able to get parties who refuse to communicate with her initially to reciprocate communication eventually. She convinces Sevro, Dancer, and even Victra to stop freezing her out and work together. She does this by speaking their "language." She knows exactly what to say or what to do to get them to finally listen to her. Revealing she already knows exactly what is going on works for Sevro, providing hard evidence of conspiracy works for Dancer, and proving her actions (showing her scars) works for Victra. This isn't to say she never makes mistakes. She shouldn't have called the Wardens on Darrow, for example, just as Darrow shouldn't have kept the meeting with the Society "diplomats" a secret from her and the Senate. But more often than not, her nonviolent communication skills yield valuable results.

As for Virginia apparently needing to learn how to use violence… While Victra and Sevro’s feelings were justified, their actions at the end of Iron Gold and the beginning of Dark Age were just wrong, wrong, wrong imo. Freezing out Virginia did nothing but delay the return of the kids. It's frustrating to think how much heartbreak could have been avoided if they'd just put their heads together from the moment the kids disappeared. And what exactly did Sevro's rampage through Luna's underground accomplish? Some dead Syndicate thorns, sure. But that tantrum put a huge target on Sevro's back. As Virginia said, one lucky sniper and boom, no more Sevro. What would Victra have done then?

While it may feel like Virginia would have achieved more if she just beheaded some people, she has a responsibility as Sovereign to consider the bigger picture. She has to consider the Stiletto. If the Vox saw her offing some fools it would have added credibility to their smear campaign. The people would have lost faith in her and think she turned into another Octavia. Whoever replaced her could use her actions to justify their own dictatorship. Violence was simply not practical for her until she legally gained Imperium. Now though… 😈

Virginia's over here playing 3D chess while everyone else is playing Connect Four, but this still isn’t enough for some people. After the clone gets the better of her, she gets flack for not being an omniscient god and just knowing her twin brother laid out a plan to clone himself ten years ago. Tut, tut, should have seen that one coming, despite the lack of evidence. If only she’d punched some people. (Can you see I hate this argument with every fiber of my being?)

In Dark Age, Ozgard says this about Electra and Pax: "She is better fighter. He is more dangerous human." (184) Well, Pax gets it from his momma. Pax and Virginia may not be able to throw devastating punches but in many ways, their intellect is what makes them the greater threat to their enemies.

Thank you for the ask!

#virginia au augustus #red rising #iron gold #dark age #iron gold trilogy #dark age spoilers #astreamikaelson13 #sorry I disappeared for like a week #I'm back writing unnecessarily long posts #my post

[kinetic-elaboration]

June 25: 2x24 The Ultimate Computer

Belated notes on my watch of The Ultimate Computer yesterday.

Kirk’s definitely in Captain Mode today. You can tell when he’s on edge and suspicious and serious.

Yet another old Kirk friend. Does he know everyone in Starfleet?

War games lol. But it’s “not the military.”

Spock is super into this computer.

A-7 Computer Expert Certification.

The crew’s not needed? Wow, okay, this is going to end badly.

“This gadget.” How do you really feel, Kirk?

And there’s Spock literally making faces behind the Commodore’s back. He is soooo that type. He’s like “Jim, are you hearing this? Can you believe this guy?”

I’m insulted on Kirk’s behalf right now. Replacing people with machines so blithely is offensive.

Of course Bones doesn’t like it.

Oh yeah triumvirate walking scene. I love them. it takes so little for me to think ‘what badasses.’ S2 is really stepping up this dynamic in particular.

And Spock is comfortable enough around Bones to be sassy around him

Oh no, the computer is already glitching, and there is no backup and no plan B.... Bones is completely right in his assessment. This is essentially a Titanic situation: way too much hubris involved. Nothing can go wrong so nothing will go wrong so we’ve planned for nothing going wrong!

McCoy has BFF Clearance. He can go wherever he wants.

“It’s the M-5? What happened to Ms 1-4?” Channel #5.

Ahhhh little gratuitous touch to Spock’s arm. They’re In Love.

“There are certain things men must do to remain men.”

“The right computer finally came along.” Damn Bones.

Jim’s suspicions about the computer coming right after that line make it look like he’s jealous that Spock likes it so much.

He’s getting a “red alert right here.” Computers don’t have that kind of intuition.

Jim’s so thoughtful and self-aware. He really cares both about his instincts and about interrogating those instincts for bias and unreasonableness. This is giving me real S1 vibes: the quiet, intelligent, idealized hero Captain at the fore.

This whole scene is perfect, eminently quotable, and sounds exactly like something that could have been written about automation in 2021. You’re okay with it when it’s happening to someone else but then the computer comes for YOUR job....

Uh-h, M-5 is turning off all the lights...

Space merchant marines... good to know.

HOW are the Captain and CMO “non-essential personnel”? The first sign that M-5 is illogical. They should bring some doctor on the landing party mission given that uh humans are going on it and might get injured.

Anyway I can’t wait for Kirk to destroy this bitch and save the day.

Lol it turned off the lights on Bones in sickbay.

Damn, now it’s trying to take Uhura’s job too!

Chekov is so bored.

Spock wants to serve under one man and one man ONLY. Loyalty to one man... sounds like a wedding vow... and Kirk looks so soft...

So, if Spock has to describe to McCoy what that (unnecessary bitchy and catty) “Captain Dunsel” remark means, by saying that it’s a phrase that “midshipmen use at Starfleet Academy,” is this to imply Bones didn’t go to Starfleet Academy?

He’s never felt so at odds with the ship.... a lover’s quarrel...she’s cheating on him with another man...

Jim Kirk, certified Poetry Nerd. He’s such a romantic.

So glad Bones got him a drink so he can return to the bridge and a possible emergency with just a little bit of a buzz going.

Spock in the chair...

Huh, an automated ship with no crew. Interesting concept.

Oh no M-5! She’s got control of the ship and she won’t let go!

Kirk’s face when Enterprise attacks.. the betrayal... his beautiful lady used for mindless destruction.

“Only a robot” ship--! Bones is insulted.

Kirk orders the computer turned off but we’re only halfway through the ep so...

....And the computer is sentient now.

That was the shortest Captain’s Log ever. “The computer has taken over the ship the end.”

Scotty’s like, “...Well what if we just unplug it?”

Okay so now they only have 19 crew.

Spock and Bones are on point today. “Don’t say it’s fascinating.” / “I won’t. But it is... interesting.” This bitch knows exactly what he’s doing.

The computer isn’t a child, guys!

We need powerful computers “so men don’t have to die in space”--like uh that man your computer literally just killed?

I don’t get Daystrom’s logic at all. He talks as if people, like, needed to do work in space, to survive or something. We don’t need to. We want to! We want to go out and meet cool aliens! This guy is no fun.

What is the thing “greater” than fact finding in space that the robots are going to free us to do? Like what is more impressive than SPACE? I don’t even get that.

Time to mix up fake sci fi world-building references with real references! The Nobel and Zee-Magnee Prizes. Sitar of Vulcan.

A theory emerges... the computer acts illogically...Daystrom won’t let Spock near it... I know this isn’t where this is going, but it kind of sounds like they’re implying it’s a scam, lol. He sold an idea he didn’t have so it’s like.. not a real computer.

Spock’s little protege, Chekov.

“We have been pursuing a wild goose.” Aw, bb’s trying so hard to be colloquial. (Also he 100% learned that phrase from McCoy in The Gamesters of Triskellion and now he’s trying it out on Kirk...when McCoy isn’t around.)

“Not to offend you by using the h-word, but... could it be... human?”

Kirk’s really mad at Daystrom now.

The Commodore really set up that dramatic turn to camera there.

Poor Kirk. His ship is being used for evil.

“They can’t destroy the ship, what would happen to the computer?!” Yes, the computer. And the other 19 people and himself but mostly the computer. Daystrom really has lost it.

I love the actor who plays him, though.

“You are great. I am great.” Nothing weird happening here.

Spirk attack! (Spork it out.)

Spock’s way too sure Commodore Wesley is about to die. “He was decent, it’s a shame the ship I’m on is gonna kill him.”

And now another round of Kirk versus the computer and Kirk’s logic wins.

M-5 should argue that it did not commit murder, it committed homicide in self-defense. But then Daystrom didn’t program it with a lawyer’s brain.

It’s uh just gonna leave? Not turn the lights back on?

Kirk is so smart! I know I say this all the time, but it’s true! He knew what to do to save the ship because he knew Bob Wesley. He had formed connections, he had experience and knowledge that doesn’t come from logic. He is not replaceable!

McCoy’s like “Spock, fight me. Debate me Spock. Fight me. I’ll be fun.”

Spock HAS answered the computers versus humans question--he likes humans. He wants to be surrounded by humans.

That was really good! One of the better S2 episodes. Great Kirk, great triumvirate--as a trio and all three sides of the triangle--great sci fi concept, great guest star, great social commentary--still 100% relevant today.

i definitely have to think more about the ‘human computer’ concept. I liked that they specifically went out of their way to explain why the computer was human, how that was part of its design, and then tied that into its creator, his background, his belief system, and his insecurities. I feel like most ‘sentient computer’ or ‘advanced AI’ narratives just assume a computer that’s powerful enough will eventually be alive, which is not something I believe. The scariness of advanced AI to me is the incredible power it has to act quickly, but in a complete black-box way: you can’t literally see the logic string of its thought processes, and nor can you figure them out easily or completely using the creators’ intentions or logic because the machine has ‘learned’ since its inception, and its learning processes are not human. There is a real alienness to them that I find scary. And I do think this ep captured that nuance in M-5: it has the speed and abilities of a super computer, the “human” qualities of its creator for well-explained reasons, and the unpredictability of a mechanism that is NEITHER human nor human-controlled tool. And of course the ep’s ultimate thesis--that humans cannot be completely automated or replaced, and that we should not want to automate or replace humans--is comforting and of a morality I can and want to agree with.

This was also one of those eps that made me curious about the differences in AOS and TOS Kirk--in other words, an ep that relied on his history with Starfleet and his experience, on the reality that he’s a 34 year old man with 15+years of experience in the Fleet. Time, experience, connections, these aren’t things you can replace no matter how smart you are, and I feel like it would have been interesting to see AOS!Kirk deal with some situation that is trickier for him because he’s a Captain with a startlingly small amount of institutional experience. It’s not just about being young or generally inexperienced, in other words--it’s about NOT knowing every Captain, Admiral, and Commodore in the service, it’s about NOT having friends across the galaxy because he just hasn’t had time to make them. Even in deep space, that matters. And I think it’s something that I appreciate more as an adult myself, with actual real world experience of the importance of connections and experience and time, especially in sort of insular or smaller work communities.

Anyway, next is Bread and Circuses! Another great ep for the triumvirate. I can’t believe we’re almost through S2!!

#the year 2021 #2021: star trek #star trek tos #2021: fandom thoughts

[claudinei-de-jesus]

The Second Coming of Christ

1. The fact of your coming.

The fact of Christ's second coming is mentioned more than 300 times in the New Testament. Paul refers to the event about fifty times.

Someone has already said that the second coming is mentioned eight times more than the first. Entire epistles (Cl and 2Tess.) And entire chapters (Mat. 24, Mat. 13) are dedicated to the subject. Without a doubt, it is one of the most important doctrines of the New Testament.

2. The way of your coming.

It will be personal (John 14: 3; Acts 1: 10,11; 1 Thess. 4:16; Rev. 1: 7; 22: 7), literal (Acts 1:10; 1 Thess. 4:16, 17; Apo . 1: 7; Zec. 14: 4), visible (Heb. 9:28; Fps. 3:20; Zac. 12:10) and glorious (Matt. 16:27; 25:31; 2Th. 1: 7 -9; Gal. 3: 4). There are interpretations that try to avoid the opinion that the coming of Christ is literal and personal. Some teach that death is the second coming of Christ. But the Bible shows that the second coming is the opposite of death, for the dead in Christ will rise at that time.

With death we will go to Christ, but when he comes he will come to fetch us. Certain passages (Matt. 16:28; Phil. 3:20) lose their meaning if we replace death with a second coming. Finally, death is an enemy, while the coming of Christ is the glorious hope. Some maintain that the second coming was the descent of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost. Others teach that Christ came at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, but in each of these cases there was no resurrection of the dead, nor the rapture of the living, nor other predicted events that will accompany the second advent.

3. The time of his coming.

Attempts were made to determine the date of Christ's coming, but in none of them did the Lord come at the appointed time for men! He declared that the exact time of his coming is hidden in the divine councils. (Matt. 24: 36-42; Mar. 13:21, 22.) It is a good thing.

Who would like to know in advance his exact time of death? Such knowledge would have the effect of disturbing and rendering the person useless. It is enough for us to know that death can come at any moment; therefore, we must work "while it is daytime because the night comes when no one can work". The same reasoning applies to the end of the present dispensation. That day has not been revealed to us either, but we know that it will be sudden (1Cor. 15:52; Matt. 24:27) and unexpected (2Ped. 3: 4; Mat. 24: 48-51; Rev. 16:15). The Lord warns his servants: "Negotiate until I come"

We give below an overview of Christ's teaching on the time of his coming: after the destruction of Jerusalem the Jews will be banished from all nations, driven out of his land, which will be subjugated by the Gentiles until the end of time, when God will judge the Gentile nations (Luke 21:24). During this time, the servants of Christ will carry on their work (Luke 19: 11-27), preaching the Gospel to all nations (Matt. 24:14).

It will be a time of delay during which the church will often be tempted to doubt the return of its Lord (Luke 18: 1-8), when some will prepare and others will become negligent, while the Bridegroom will delay (Matt. 25: 1-11). Unfaithful ministers will stray, saying to themselves, "My Lord is slow to come" (Luke 12:45).

"Long afterwards" (Matt. 25:19), "... midnight (Matt. 25: 6),‹ the hour and day that none of his disciples know of (Matt. 24:36, 42.50) , the Lord will suddenly appear to gather his servants and judge them according to their works (Matt. 25:19; and 2 Cor. 5:10). Later, after the Gospel had been universally preached and after the world had it rejected, when the people are living completely ignorant of the impending catastrophe, as in the days of Noah (Matt. 24: 37-39) and in the days of the destruction of Sodom (Luke 17:28, 29) the Son of man will come in glory and power to judge the nations of the world and to reign over them (Matt. 25: 31-46).

4. Signs of your coming.

Scripture teaches that the appearance of Christ ushering in the Millennial Age will be preceded by an eventful time of transition, in which there will be physical upheavals, wars, economic crises, moral decline, religious apostasy, infidelity, general panic and bewilderment. The last part of that transitional period is called "The Great Tribulation", during which the whole world will be under the rule of a government against God and anti-Christian. Believers in God will be brutally persecuted, and the Jewish nation, in particular, will pass through the furnace of affliction.

5. The purpose of your coming.

(a) In relation to the church. Thus writes Dr. Pardington: Just as the first coming of the Lord extended over a period of 30 years, so the second coming will influence various events. At the first coming he was revealed as the Child of Bethlehem; later as the Lamb of God, when he was baptized, and as the Redeemer on Calvary. At the second coming he will appear to his secretly and suddenly to transfer them to the Wedding of the Lamb. This apparition is called the rapture or "Parousia" (which means "apparition" or "presence" or "arrival" in the Greek language). At that time believers will be judged to determine their rewards for services rendered (Matt. 25: 14-30). After the rapture, a period of terrible tribulation follows, which will end in revelation, or open manifestation of

Christ from heaven, when he will establish his messianic kingdom on earth.

(b) In relation to Israel. He who is the Head and Savior of the church, of the people of heaven, is also the promised Messiah of Israel, of the earthly people. As Messiah, he will free these people from tribulation, bring them together from the four corners of the earth, restore them to their former land and reign over them as their long-promised King over the House of David.

(c) In relation to the antichrist. The spirit of the Antichrist is already in the world (1 John 4: 3; 2:18; 2:22), but yet another final Antichrist will come (2 Thess. 2: 3). In the last days he will rise from the old world (Rev. 13: 1) and will become the sovereign over a resurrected Roman Empire that will dominate the whole world. He will assume great political (Dan. 7: 8, 25), commercial (Dan. 8:25; Rev. 13:16, 17) and religious (Rev. 17: 1-15) power. He will be anti-God and anti-Christ, and will persecute Christians in an attempt to extinguish Christianity. (Dan. 7:25; 8:24; Rev. 13: 7, 15). Knowing that men desire to have some religion, he will establish a cult based on the divinity of man and the supremacy of the state.

As an embodiment of that state, he will demand the worship of the people, and form a priesthood to enforce and promulgate that worship. (2Th. 2: 9,10; Rev. 13: 12-15.) The antichrist will take the doctrine of the supremacy of the state to the extreme, which teaches that government is the supreme power, around which everything, including itself man's conscience, has to be subordinate to him. Since there is no higher power or law than the State, according to them, God and his law must be abolished in order to worship the State. The first attempt to establish the cult of the State is recorded in Daniel ch. 3. Nebuchadnezzar was proud of the powerful empire he had built. "Is not this the great Babylon that I have built? ..." (Dan. 4:30).

So dazzled was he in the face of human power and government, that the state for him became like a god. What better way to impress men with your glory than to order them to have the symbol of that government worshiped! Therefore, he built a great golden image and ordered all peoples to prostrate themselves before it, under pain of death. The image was not that of a local deity, but it represented the state itself. Refusing to worship the image was considered atheism or betrayal. When instituting this new religion, Nebuchadnezzar as if saying to the people: "Who gave you the beautiful cities, the good roads, and beautiful gardens? The State! Who provides you with food and service, who founds schools and sponsors temples?

The state! Who defends you from enemy attacks? The state! then is the State, this power, not a god? So, what greater god do you want than your exalted government? Prostrate yourselves before the symbol of great Babylon! "And if God had not humbled him from his blasphemous pride (Dan. 4: 28-37), Nebuchadnezzar perhaps would have demanded the worship of his own person as head of state. Like the three Hebrew children (Dan. 3) were persecuted for refusing to bow to Nebuchadnezzar's image, so first-century Christians suffered because they refused to pay divine homage to Caesar's image.

There was tolerance for all religions in the Roman Empire, but on condition that the image of Caesar as a symbol of the state was venerated. Christians were persecuted, not so much for their loyalty to Christ, but because they refused to worship Caesar and say, "Caesar is Lord." They refused to worship the state as a god. The French Revolution offers another example of this policy. God and Christ were thrown out and a god, or goddess, made himself the "Fatherland" (the State). So said one of the leaders: "The state is supreme in all things. When the state speaks, the church has nothing to say." Loyalty to the state has risen to the position of religion.

The assembly decreed that altars should be erected in every village with the following inscription: "The citizen is born, lives and dies for La Patrie." A ritual was prepared for baptisms, weddings and civil burials. The state religion had its hymns and prayers, its fasts and feasts. The New Testament recognizes human government as divinely ordained for the maintenance of order and justice. The Christian, therefore, owes loyalty to his homeland.

Both the church and the state have their share in the divine program, and each must be limited to its own sphere. God must receive what belongs to him, and Caesar must receive what belongs to him. But it turns out that many times Caesar demands things that are from God, with the result that the church, very against his will, clashes with the government. Scripture predicts that these conflicts will peak in the future. The last civilization will be anti-God, and the antichrist, its leader, the world dictator, will make the laws of this superstate supreme over all other laws ", and will demand the worship of his person as the personification of the state. The same Scriptures predict the victory of God and that on the ruins of the anti-Christian world empire, he will raise up his kingdom in which God is supreme - the Kingdom of God. (Dan. 2:34, 35, 44; Rev. 11:15; 19: 11-21.)

(d) In relation to nations. The nations will be judged, the kingdoms of the world will be destroyed, and all peoples will be subject to the King of kings. (Dan. 2:44; Mic. 4: 1; Isa. 49:22, 23; Jer. 23: 5; Luc. 1:32; Zec. 14: 9; Isa. 24:23; Rev. 11:15 .) Christ will rule the nations with an iron rod; he will remove all oppression and injustice from the land and inaugurate the golden age of a thousand years. (Ps. 2: 7-9; 72; Isa. 11: 1-9; Rev. 20: 6.) "Then the end will come, when he has given the kingdom over to God the Father and when he has annihilated the entire empire , and all power and strength "(1Cor. 15:24).

There are three stages in the work of Christ as Mediator: His work as a Prophet, accomplished during his earthly ministry; his work as a Priest, begun on the cross and continued during the current dispensation; and his work as King, beginning with his coming and continuing during the Millennium. After the Millennium has accomplished its work of uniting humanity to God, so that the inhabitants of heaven and earth form one big family where God will be everything and will be in everyone. (Eph. 1:10; 3:14, 15.)

However, Christ will continue to reign as the God-man, and to share in the divine government, for "his kingdom will have no end" (Luke 1:33). .. A segunda vinda de Cristo

1. O fato de sua vinda.

O fato da segunda vinda de Cristo é mais de 300 vezes no Novo Testamento. Paulo refere-se ao evento umas cinqüenta vezes.

Alguém já disse que a segunda vinda é mencionada oito vezes mais do que a primeira. Epístolas inteiras (Cl e 2Tess.) E capítulos inteiros (Mat. 24, Mat. 13) são dedicados ao assunto. Sem dúvida, é uma das doutrinas mais importantes do Novo Testamento.

2. Uma maneira de sua vinda.

Será de maneira pessoal (João 14: 3; Atos 1: 10,11; 1Tess. 4:16; Apo. 1: 7; 22: 7), literal (Atos 1:10; 1Tess. 4:16, 17; Apo. . 1: 7; Zac. 14: 4), visível (Heb. 9:28; Fps. 3:20; Zac. 12:10) e gloriosa (Mat. 16:27; 25:31; 2Tess. 1: 7 -9; Gál. 3: 4). Há interpretações que procuram evitar a opinião de que a vinda de Cristo seja literal e pessoal. Alguns ensinam que a morte é uma segunda vinda de Cristo. Mas a Bíblia mostra que uma segunda vinda é o contrário da morte, pois os mortos em Cristo ressuscitarão nessa ocasião.

Com a morte iremos para Cristo, mas na sua vinda ele virá para nos buscar. Certas passagens (Mat. 16:28; Fil. 3:20) perdem seu significado se substituíssemos morte por segunda vinda. Finalmente, a morte é um inimigo, enquanto a vinda de Cristo é a gloriosa esperança. Alguns sustentam que a segunda vinda foi a descida do Espírito no dia de Pentecoste. Outros ensinam que Cristo veio no tempo da destruição de Jerusalém no ano 70 d.C., mas em cada um desses casos não houve ressurreição dos mortos, nem o arrebatamento dos vivos, nem outros eventos preditos que acompanham o segundo advento.

3. O Tempo da sua vinda.

Tentativas houve para determinar os dados da vinda de Cristo, mas em nenhuma delas o Senhor veio na hora marcada pelos homens! Ele requer que o tempo exato de sua vinda está oculto nos conselhos divinos. (Mat. 24: 36-42; Mar. 13:21, 22.) é bom que seja assim.

Quem gostaria de saber com antecedência a hora exata de sua morte? Tal conhecimento teria o efeito de perturbar e inutilizar uma pessoa. Basta que saibamos que a morte pode vir a qualquer instante; portanto, dever trabalhar "enquanto é dia pois a noite vem quando ninguém pode trabalhar". O mesmo raciocínio serve quanto ao fim da presente dispensação. Esse dia também não nos foi revelado, mas sabemos será repentino (1Cor. 15:52; Mat. 24:27) e inesperado (2Ped. 3: 4; Mat. 24: 48-51; Apo. 16:15). O Senhor avisa seus servos: "Negociai até que eu venha"

Damos em seguida uma visão geral do ensino de Cristo sobre o tempo da sua vinda: após a destruição de Jerusalém os serão desterrados entre todas as nações, expulsos de sua terra, a qual passará a ser subjugada pelos gentios até o fim dos tempos, quando Deus julgará as nações gentias (Luc. 21:24). Durante esse período os servos de Cristo levarão sua obra avante (Luc. 19: 11-27) pregando o Evangelho a todas as nações (Mat. 24:14).

Será um tempo de demora durante o qual muitas vezes a igreja será tentada a duvidar do retomo do seu Senhor (Luc. 18: 1-8), quando alguns se prepararão e outros se tornarão negligentes, enquanto o Noivo demorar (Mat. 25: 1-11). Ministros infiéis desviar-se-ão, dizendo consigo mesmos: "O meu Senhor tarda a vir" (Luc. 12:45).

"Muito tempo depois" (Mat. 25:19), "… meia-noite (Mat. 25: 6),‹ a hora e no dia dos quais nenhum dos seus discípulos sabe (Mat. 24:36, 42,50) , o Senhor repentinamente vencido para ajuntar seus servos e julgá-los segundo como suas obras (Mat. 25:19; e 2Cor. 5:10). Mais tarde, depois de ter sido pregado universalmente o Evangelho e após o mundo havê-lo rejeitado, quando o povo estiver vivendo completamente ignorante quanto à catástrofe iminente, como nos dias de Noé (Mat. 24: 37-39) e nos dias da destruição de Sodoma (Luc. 17:28, 29) virá o Filho do homem em glória e poder para julgar as nações do mundo e sobre elas reinar (Mat. 25: 31-46).

4. Sinais de sua vinda.

As Escrituras ensinam que a aparição de Cristo inaugurando a Idade Milenial será precedida por um tempo agitado de transição, no qual haverá distúrbios físicos, guerras, crises preventivas, declínio moral, apostasia religiosa, infidelidade, pânico geral e perplexidade. A última parte desse período transitório chama-se "A Grande Tribulação", durante a qual o mundo inteiro estará sob o domínio governo contra Deus e anticristão. Crentes em Deus serão brutalmente perseguidos, e uma nação judaica, em particular, passará pela fornalha da aflição.

5. O propósito de sua vinda.

(a) Em relação à igreja. Assim chamado ao Dr. Pardington: Assim como a primeira vinda do Senhor se estendeu sobre um período de 30 anos, assim como a segunda vinda influirá em vários eventos. Na primeira vinda ele foi revelado como o Menino de Belém; mais tarde como o Cordeiro de Deus, ao ser batizado, e como o Redentor no Calvário. Na segunda vinda anunciada aos seus secreta e repentinamente para trasladá-los às Bodas do Cordeiro. Essa aparição chama-se o arrebatamento ou "Parousia" (que significa "aparição" ou "presença" ou "chegada" na língua grega). Nessa ocasião os crentes serão julgados para determinar as suas recompensas por serviços prestados (Mat. 25: 14-30). Após o arrebatamento, segue-se um período de terrível tribulação, que terminará na revelação, ou manifestação aberta de

Cristo proveniente do céu, quando ele estabelecer seu reino messiânico sobre a terra.

(b) Em relação a Israel. Aquele que é a Cabeça e Salvador da igreja, do povo do céu, é também o prometido Messias de Israel, do povo terrestre. Como Messias, ele libertará esse povo da tribulação, congregá-lo-á dos quatro cantos da terra, restaurá-lo-á na sua antiga terra e sobre ele reinará como seu, há muito prometido, Rei sobre a Casa de Davi.

(c) Em relação ao anticristo. O espírito do anticristo já está no mundo (1João 4: 3; 2:18; 2:22), mas ainda virá outro anticristo final (2Ts. 2: 3). Nos últimos dias ele se levantará o velho mundo (Apo. 13: 1) e tornar-se-á o sóbrio sobre um Império Romano ressuscitado que dominará todo o mundo. Assumirá grande poder político (Dn 7: 8, 25), comercial (Dn 8:25; Apo. 13:16, 17) e religioso (Apo. 17: 1-15). Ele será anti-Deus e anti-Cristo, e perseguirá os cristãos numa tentativa de extinção do Cristianismo. (Dan. 7:25; 8:24; Apo. 13: 7, 15). Sabendo que os homens que desejam ter alguma religião, ele estabelecerá um culto baseado na divindade do homem e na supremacia do Estado.

Como personificação desse Estado, ele exigirá o culto do povo, e formará um sacerdócio para fazer cumprir e promulgar esse culto. (2Tess. 2: 9,10; Apo. 13: 12-15.) O anticristo levará ao extremo a doutrina da supremacia do Estado, a qual ensina que o governo é o supremo poder, em torno do qual tudo, incluindo a própria consciente do homem, tem que estar subordinado. Visto que não existe poder ou lei mais elevados do que o Estado, segundo eles, Deus e sua lei precisam ser abolidos para prestar culto ao Estado. A primeira tentativa para estabelecer o culto ao Estado está registrado em Daniel cap. 3. Nabucodonosor orgulhou-se do poderoso império que edificara. "não é esta a grande Babilônia que eu edifiquei? ..." (Dan. 4:30).

Tão deslumbrado ficou ele diante do poderio e governos humanos, que o Estado para ele se tomou como um deus. Que melhor maneira de impressionar os homens com sua glória, do que ordenar-lhes que o símbolo desse governo fosse venerado! Portanto, ele edificou uma grande imagem dourada e mandou que todos os povos se prostrassem diante dela, sob pena de morte. A imagem não foi a de uma divindade local, mas representava o próprio Estado. Recusar cultuar a imagem era considerado ateísmo ou traição. Ao instituir essa nova religião, Nabucodonosor como que dizia ao povo: "Quem vos deu as belas cidades, as boas estradas, e belos jardins? O Estado! Quem vos provê de alimentos e serviço, quem funda escolas e patrocina templos?

O Estado! Quem vos defende dos inimigos? O Estado! não será então o Estado, esse poderio, um deus? Portanto, que maior deus quereis do que vosso exaltado governo? Prostrai-vos perante o símbolo da grande Babilônia! "E se Deus não o tivesse humilhado do seu orgulho blasfemo (Dan. 4: 28-37), Nabucodonosor talvez tivesse exigido o culto de sua própria pessoa como chefe do Estado. Como os três os filhos hebreus (Dan. 3) foram perseguidos por se recusarem a curvar-se perante a imagem de Nabucodonosor, assim os cristãos do primeiro século sofreram porque se recusaram a render homenagens divinas à imagem de César.

Havia de tolerância todas as religiões no Império Romano, mas sob a condição de que fosse venerada a imagem de César como símbolo do Estado. Os cristãos foram perseguidos, não tanto por sua lealdade a Cristo, mas porque se recusaram a adorar a César e dizer: "César é Senhor." Recusaram-se a cultuar o Estado como deus. A Revolução francesa oferece outro exemplo dessa política. Deus e Cristo foram lançados fora e um deus, ou deusa, se fez do "Pátria". Assim disse um dos lideres: "O Estado é supremo em todas as coisas. Quando o Estado se pronuncia, a igreja não tem nada a dizer." A lealdade ao Estado elevou-se à posição de religião.

A assembléia decretou que em todas as vilas feitas levantados altares com a seguinte inscrição: "O cidadão nasce, vive e morre por La Patrie." Preparou-se um ritual para batismos, casamentos e enterros civis. A religião do Estado possuía seus hinos e orações, seus jejuns e festas. O Novo Testamento reconhecido o governo humano como divinamente ordenado para a manutenção da ordem e da justiça. O cristão, por conseguinte, deve lealdade à sua pátria.

Tanto a igreja como o estado têm sua parte no programa divino, e cada qual deve limitar-se a sua esfera. Deus deve receber o que pertence, e César deve receber o que pertence. Mas acontece que muitas vezes César exige as coisas que são de Deus, atualizando a igreja, muito contra sua vontade, entra em choque com o governo. As Escrituras prevêem que esses conflitos futuramente chegarão ao seu ponto máximo. A última civilização será anti-Deus, e o anticristo, seu chefe, o ditador mundial, tornará as leis desse superestado supremas sobre todas as demais leis ", e exigirá o culto à sua pessoa como a personificação do Estado. As primeiras Escrituras predizem uma vitória de Deus e que sobre as ruínas do império mundial "anticristão, ele levantará seu reino no qual Deus é supremo - o Reino de Deus. (Dan. 2:34, 35, 44; Apo. 11:15; 19: 11-21.)

(d) Em relação às nações. As nações serão julgadas, os reinos do mundo destruídos, e todos os povos estão sujeitos ao Rei dos reis. (Dan. 2:44; Miq. 4: 1; Isa. 49:22, 23; Jer. 23: 5; Luc. 1:32; Zac. 14: 9; Isa. 24:23; Apo. 11:15 .) Cristo regerá as nações com vara de ferro; tirará toda a opressão e injustiça da terra e inaugurará a Idade áurea de mil anos. (Sal. 2: 7-9; 72; Isa. 11: 1-9; Apo. 20: 6.) "Depois virá o fim, quando houver entregado o reino a Deus, o Pai, e quando houver aniquilado todo o império , e toda potestade e força "(1 Cor. 15:24).

Há três estágios na obra de Cristo como Mediador: Sua obra como Profeta, cumprida durante seu ministério terrestre; sua obra como Sacerdote, começada na cruz e continuada durante a dispensação atual; e sua obra como Rei, começando com sua vinda e continuando durante o Milênio. Depois do milênio ter cumprido sua obra de unir a humanidade a Deus, de forma que os habitantes do céu e da terra formem uma só grande família onde Deus será tudo e estará em todos. (Efés. 1:10; 3:14, 15.)

Contudo, Cristo continuará a reinar como o Deus-homem, e compartilhar do governo divino, pois "o seu reino não terá fim" (Luc. 1:33).

[ohlawsons]

i played the fool (you played the martyr)

summary: As with everything else between her and Theron, there’s always been a back-and-forth, a push-and-pull, a predictable wobble in their unsteady orbit around each other.  or; Nathema throws some things into question and throws others into sharp focus. Maybe this is a conversation that's long overdue. pairing: Rei/Theron word count: 4659 notes: back on my bullshit with 4k words of chaotic bisexuals

***

Countless things flash through Rei’s mind as Theron falls, but her foremost thought is that she’s glad he’ll be too focused on the pain — if he’s even still conscious — to pay attention to her, because she really doesn’t think he’ll appreciate the things she has planned for Vinn Atrius.

(She recognizes his voice, now, from that first transmission they’d caught back on Odessen, months ago when this had all begun. She’d crushed the holocomm as the message replayed, using the Force to reduce it to mangled metal and a shower of sparks. They were going to find him — the Zakuulan, not Theron; she hadn’t yet acknowledged out loud that Theron was no longer on Odessen — and she’d announced to the war room that she was going to end him in a variety of painful ways.

Lana had been the only one present who hadn’t flinched.)

It’s been nearly six months since Umbara, six months since she’d held back Lana and watched Theron and Zaara walk away. Six months of galaxy-wide broadcasts and half-hearted warnings that she would be bringing him back to Odessen — alive —  and six months of carefully nurtured rage and grief and confusion held tight in her chest, growing and festering until a moment like this, a moment where she has somewhere to focus all of this pain and uncertainty.

But she forces that from her mind, for now. T’sereen kneels beside Theron, and Rei knows the former Jedi will do everything in her power to keep him alive; even as Rei stalks towards Atrius, even as she rips the saber from his hands and reaches out to force him to his knees, she can sense as T’sereen begins healing Theron. It’s enough — just as it will need to be enough when she clinches her hands tight, grasping onto Atrius with the Force and gripping, pulling, tugging.

She wants to take her time. She’s Sith, after all, and she’s furious — hands shaking, eyes alight with a ocher burn, the darker edges of the Force wrenched and shaped through her will alone — and she’s spent so long planning this moment, waiting and wishing and wanting, debating the very best way to express all these months of equal parts bitterness and despair.

But Theron would protest, if he were in any shape to protest rather than out cold on the ground behind her, so instead Rei continues to pull, and with one last effort to expend all her pent up energy there’s release and the sundered halves of Atrius’ armor-clad body clatter to the ground.

She suspects Theron would still protest.

But it doesn’t matter. Lana and Zaara are already rushing past her to the console, but Rei almost can’t find it within herself to care; the grief she’s so studiously built up over the months is gone, and its sudden loss leaves her exhausted and swaying on her feet. She joins T’sereen, stands just behind her and watches as the Jedi works, cursing beneath her breath as her hands move over the wound on Theron’s chest.

“He’ll live,” is all she says at first, before standing without warning and hoisting Theron up with her, beginning to carry him back out of the ruins. “I need to get him back to the med bay on the ship. Go save the galaxy,” she adds, jerking her head towards the console.

Rei watches as they leave, eyes trailing them a moment longer than she knows is necessary; letting out a slow breath, she turns back to where Lana and Zaara are now focused on tearing the systems apart, and Rei lets electricity begin to spark and crackle along her fingertips.

 ***

 She doesn’t leave him alone once they’re back on the ship, maintaining a stubborn watch over him in the medbay even as Lana needles her about putting together an official statement for Odessen and T’sereen shoos her away, fussing over Theron with a combination of kolto and her own Force healing abilities. Andronikos joins her, too, letting Zaara take the helm so he can sit with Rei instead of sleeping.

“For what it’s worth,” he says after T’sereen leaves to get some sleep of her own, “this isn’t as bad as you were after Thanaton. That was…” he pauses, and there’s a ragged edge to the words even after all these years. “You looked a lot worse than this. And you still pulled through, even with those ghosts toying with you.”

Rei doesn’t bother turning from Theron. “The ghosts kept me alive,” she reminds Andronikos, aware her tone has slipped into something akin to a pout; she figures she’s entitled to a bit of pouting, really, given the way things have gone recently.

“Sort of.” Another pause. “We didn’t have a Jedi, either.”

The way he shrugs as he says it — as nonchalant as anything — is enough to pull a tired grin from Rei. She rests her head on his shoulder and stays there, content with just his presence, until he leaves to take the helm again and Lana’s back, asking about statements and the Alliance’s official stance on the incident; she’ll humor Lana, Rei decides, and makes an honest effort to type something up but she can’t focus, not really, not with Theron lying so still before her.

They arrive on Odessen long before Rei can muster up anything substantial, so she passes off the datapad to Lana and follows as Theron is taken to the base’s clinic to be looked over by Yvara and the other doctors. It takes more than one pointed threat to keep them from throwing Rei out of the clinic entirely; she gives them space, at least, and paces at the far end of the room while T’sereen relays details of the injury and the treatment she’d already given.

When Yvara finally gives the all-clear — “He’s stable, but he needs time. Do not let him leave this room when he wakes,” is all she says before leaving — Rei takes up the same post as in the ship; she pulls up a chair and settles in, scrolling aimlessly through a datapad despite her attention remaining fully on Theron.

She hasn’t worked out how to feel, not yet; she’d never fully accepted that Theron was even gone, to begin with — as she’d pointed out in the first broadcast after Umbara, everyone who has ever betrayed her is dead — and a hollow ache settles in her chest whenever she allows herself to consider any similar course of action for dealing with Theron.

It couldn’t be betrayal, then, as she’d told Lana for all those months, even as her remaining spymaster repeatedly showed that all evidence pointed to the contrary — until things had begun to unravel, and hints and messages and breadcrumbs began to reveal themselves.

(Lana had refused to see it, all the way up until Copero, and that’s when Rei realized just how hard Lana was taking the betrayal, as well. There was a bond between her and Theron and Zaara, one that went back to Manaan all those years ago, and Rei knew it wasn’t easy to have that bond broken by them both at once.

But then Raina came waltzing onto Odessen with decrypted messages from Zaara that used a code their team had only used when deep undercover, one that only Raina and Lokin could decrypt and, well, Raina was the only one left living. She knew her wife, Raina insisted with more fire and certainty than Odessen had seen since Umbara, and she knew the messages were deliberate. Zaara and Theron weren’t traitors, not really. Not in the truest since of the word.

But Rei thinks it’s that revelation that hurt Lana the most, learning that she had somehow lost the trust of her two closest friends.)

It doesn’t feel good, being right.

Hope and grief and anger have left a hollowed out pit in her stomach, it seems, from holding on to them so tightly for so long, but it doesn’t matter because it’s over. He’s back. He’s back, and yet something dark still roils within her mind, because once again this careful back-and-forth dance between them has a looming obstacle — like on Rishi, on Yavin, on Ziost — that she’d made the mistake of assuming was over once they’d reunited on Odessen.

It isn’t opposite sides of the war, this time, not really. She would tear down the galaxy for him, collapse the stars and ignite the planets; it’s her way, it’s in her nature, because all she’s ever known is to fight.

But Theron — he would save the galaxy for her, fight until his last breath to hold it together with his own bare hands, if need be; that’s his nature, isn’t it, to stand in the way of a blaster or a saber — or a god — because while he isn’t a Jedi he shares too many of their damnable values, Rei thinks, and hasn’t that always been the problem standing between them?

Maybe they could both learn to be a little less reckless, but that hasn’t ever been in either of their natures.

She watches the steady, shallow rise and fall of his chest, the raw bruising around his implant, the dark circles beneath his eyes; for a moment, equal parts rage and satisfaction bubble up within her at the memory of, quite literally, tearing apart the man responsible, but it’s quickly replaced by guilt that churns uncomfortably within her mind — because while this isn’t her fault, it easily could’ve been. As with everything else between her and Theron, there’s always been a back-and-forth, a push-and-pull, a predictable wobble in their unsteady orbit around each other.

They both act without thinking, they rush forward, spurred on by gut feeling and base emotion. She leave destruction in her wake, and he follows behind to clean up the mess and protect her from the fallout of her own actions. Maybe he would disagree — she knows he would disagree — but Rei can’t help but wonder if this would’ve still happened if she were a little more cautious, a little less brash, someone that Theron could’ve trusted this sort of delicate mission to.

But then, she thinks, quiet fondness causing her lips to curl into a soft grin, he was hardly delicate about the mission, either, given the way he leapt into the heart of the cult.

He’d never asked her to be anything but who she already was — and she could be so much, at times, she knew — and Rei doesn’t think she could ask Theron to change, either.

She knows what she signed up for.

 ***

 He stirs later that night, and Rei immediately has to reach over to keep him from trying to sit up; she suspects that he would’ve given up rather quickly even without her intervention, if the grimace of pain is anything to go by. She sets her datapad aside, one hand reaching for his before she withdraws; unease and uncertainly settles over her and she hesitates, sitting back in her chair and crossing her arms.

“Ow.” He doesn’t try sitting again, but does turn his head just enough to look in Rei’s direction.

“We’re going to have matching scars now,” she informs him, matter-of-fact, brow raising as she glances over him again; the twisted, gnarled scar tissue that crosses her own torso — a gift from her first fight with Thanaton — is a bit messier than Theron’s will be, she suspects, once it heals enough to be a scar. “Though I think yours will heal better.”

He starts to laugh, but the sound quickly gives way to a sharp intake of breath as his grimace returns. “Glad to hear it. Are we back on Odessen?”

“We are. Are you here to stay?” The question comes out more quickly than Rei had wanted, more callous and point-blank than she’d planned, but she doesn’t take it back; she’s been in the dark for too long, spent too many nights alone with nothing but her uncertainty for company. He owes her this one thing, she thinks, just one answered question to atone for six months of lies and reckless deception.

Theron looks away, just for a moment, a few seconds of silence before he reaches for her; it’s nothing but a hint of motion, just one hand creeping to the edge of the medical bed he’s on, but Rei understands and gingerly takes his hand in one of her own. “Yes,” he says, slowly, just as delicately as the way they cling to each other, “if you’ll have me. All I want is to come back to the Alliance. Here.” A beat of silence. “With you.”

He’s watching her with a careful, reserved gaze, as if he doesn’t expect her to say yes, and somehow that cuts Rei as deeply as when he’d left in the first place. She wonders if it’s the pain or the meds, or if he really believes that she cares so little for him that she would toss him aside.

As if she could.

“Yes, of course,” she says, swallowing back the way his doubt stings and making a show of rolling her eyes. “I’m not going anywhere, if you’re not. And if you are—“ she pauses and leans forward, giving his hand the slightest squeeze, “—then take me with you next time.” He starts to argue but she shakes her head; they aren’t ready for this sort of conversation, not now, not when he’s still too weak to even sit up on his own. “Focus on healing, and we can have this fight later. But I want you to know, Theron, that I love you. So completely and deeply that I… I don’t even know how to make sense of it.” She pauses, places a second hand over his; her voice stays steady, but her chest burns with the intensity of the words, the staggering depth of the way she feels about it. About him. With a slow exhale, she forces a carefully measured grin. “Really, it’s cute that you think a little betrayal is enough to get rid of me.”

He says nothing, at first, but his cautious grip on Rei’s hand tightens and she wonders if she didn’t say the wrong thing, opting for a bit of levity to break up the heavy moment. But then he smiles — it’s slow, and hesitant, and almost bitter — and when he speaks his tone is tired. “The last thing I wanted was to push you away. If there had been some other way…” He lets out a slow breath, releases her hand. “I didn’t have a choice. For the Alliance, for you…”

The words trail off again and Rei can tell Theron’s fighting exhaustion — or the meds, or both — so she slides her hand back and stands, grabbing her discarded datapad and clutching it in a grip so tight she worries it’ll crack. “Rest,” she chides, taking a step back; if she doesn’t leave now, she doesn’t know that she’ll be able to leave his side at all. “I’ll get Yvara. And I’ll be waiting — after she clears you and you’re released. No sneaking out of here early.”

That, at least, earns her a tired smile, and she pauses in the doorway and watches as Theron’s eyes flutter shut; all the months of bitterness and uncertainty seem so trivial, now that he’s back, and something like resolve — like certainty — settles warm within her bones and she’s happy, she thinks, for the first time in what feels like years.

 ***

 She doesn’t avoid him, not necessarily, but the next several days pass in a flurry of frantic activity that leave little time for her to visit.

Rei, Lana, and Beywan work to put together an official statement, first in a quiet memo circulated through the Alliance, then to lengthy reports passed to their Imperial and Republic ambassadors; Arcann takes the liberty of smoothing things over with the rest of Zakuul, but when Rei tries to thank him he waves off the attention — something about knowing Theron and Zaara need people on their side.

Zaara, for her part, seems in a better mood than Rei has ever seen her, walking hand in hand with Raina throughout the base. Theron’s recovery has gone well, to the point where Rei knows Yvara has had to threaten — more than once — to cuff Theron to the bed if he continues to try and bargain his way out of the clinic. She wishes she could visit, more than the handful of times she’s dropped by since their return, but she’s hardly had time to even sleep with as busy as she’s been.

After working to convince the rest of the galaxy that Theron and Zaara had been working under Odessen’s orders — something made infinitely easier by the fact that Rei left them alive, in stark contrast to the long list of others who had betrayed her and faced swift retribution — there were the continued attempts from both Empress Acina and Chancellor Rans to sway the Alliance in their favor, as well as the increasingly worrisome rumors that renewed war looms on the horizon, all punctuated by the stream of reports highlighting the galaxy’s worsening resource shortage. Rei doesn’t mind politics, far from it, but even the verbal sparring with Acina and blunt threats towards Rans grow tiresome, these days.

She misses Theron’s official discharge from the clinic, and only learns about it after an impossibly long day spent in meetings and on calls and trying to wrap her mind around the logistics of working enough farmland to feed the entirety of the Alliance; on a different day, she might have stormed through the base to demand answers, to demand the reason that she wasn’t alerted as soon as he was released. But tonight, she’s not in the mood to fight with anyone, so instead she drags her tired feet through the base towards her quarters — their quarters — only to find them empty.

It doesn’t take her long to find him; it’s late enough that Odessen is growing quiet, and by now Rei knows Theron well enough to have a good idea of the handful of places he’ll sneak off to when he needs a moment to himself. She finds him at the back of the base, leaning against the railing of one of the walkways that leads down to the shallow valley where she and Zaara both tend to land their ships. It’s peaceful, down here, tucked away just out of sight of the hanger bay where the Gravestone used to sit.

Rei doesn’t bother to announce her presence. She stands beside him, hands clasped behind her back as she joins him in surveying the valley that sprawls out before them; Theron acknowledges her with a quick glance, but even just that is enough for Rei to see that his movements are still stiff. “Out early on good behavior?” she asks lightly, brow raising as she suppresses a grin.

“Something like that.” His white-knuckled grip on the railing loosens, but the rest of his posture remains rigid, tense. “Guess I just needed some time to get my thoughts together.”

There’s a comfortable silence, then — at least, it’s comfortable enough for Rei, but beside her Theron is still impossibly still; she reaches for one of his hands, steps closer until she’s pressed against his side, warm and solid and real. She isn’t very good at providing comfort, but she can be here, and that’s something. “How did this all even happen?” she asks after a moment, the words more curious than accusatory, eyes locked on their joined hands as her fingers intertwine with his. “How long before Iokath were you scheming?” She tilts her head up, brow raised and lips curled into a mischievous smirk.

“In my defense, things got a little out of hand.”

“Mhmm.”

“An old contact of mine got me some leads,” he says, finally beginning to relax beside her; Rei wonders if it’s her presence or the chance to finally speak freely about it all. “I didn’t expect anything to come of it, but next thing I knew I was staring at a way in with the Order.”

“The mysterious Iokath intel,” she guesses.

He nods. “I knew I could convince you to send a team to investigate, and had to hope the Empire and Republic would do the same.” He pauses, frowning, and when he speaks again he sounds a bit sheepish for the first time. “That’s… when Zaara found out. She’s still got friends in Sith Intelligence, and apparently I didn’t cover my tracks as well as I’d thought. But I wanted to make sure I had something substantial before I turned it over to the rest of the Alliance.” Another pause, this time to glance back out over the valley, and when he speaks again his voice is rough. “There was just too much going on to waste time and people on a dead end, but… guess I didn’t really help with the personnel issues.”

Rei shifts her weight, gives a noncommittal wave of her free hand. “There’s always personnel issues. I’ve been dealing with them since long before Odessen. What about the trap on Iokath?” She doesn’t think she really wants to know, but she needs to, doesn’t she? Maybe it doesn’t matter, but she’s tired of not knowing.

“Zaara’s idea.” The simple statement comes out on a rough sigh, slow but not quite hesitant. “Atrius’ plan — I didn’t know it was him, at the time — was for you to get caught in the crossfire. Zaara pointed out it might look… suspicious, if the Alliance came out so far ahead, and I had just enough time to…” He doesn’t say it, doesn’t admit that he was the one to rig the trap that knocked Rei out cold, but the words still hang between them, unsaid. “Atrius assumed you’d make a run for the weapon and try to secure it for the Alliance, but none of us expected you to get so creative about it. Or lucky.”

“And you didn’t tell anyone at that point?” Again, she’s careful to keep her voice even, not too sharp. Not too frustrated.

Theron’s frustration, however, is plain in his tone. “We didn’t even get to meet Atrius in person until after Iokath, which is when we realized that Gemini droid was in our systems. I couldn’t report it at that point. Not without tipping off the Order.” He pauses, jaw working, eyes focused on something off in the distance. “So we met with him, and he told us about the Adegan crystals and Umbara, and… there was no going back.”

She doesn’t ask for details about Umbara.

“So…” He lets out a long, slow breath, turning back to Rei. “Where do we go from here?”

She tilts her head, considers; it’s been a long day, and a longer evening, but she certainly feels as if she’s gotten the answers she’d needed. “To bed, I’d hope,” she decides, giving the slightest tug on their still-joined hands. “It’s been a very long day and I’m very tired of sleeping alone.”

“Just like that?” His brow furrows and his expression shifts to one that’s not quite suspicious.

Rei frowns, fighting back a yawn. “Would you rather we have a big fight about this?” she deadpans. “What you did was stupid and reckless, but you and I both know I’m the last person who should be criticizing rash decisions.” Exhaustion finally gets the better of her and she yawns before continuing, “I’m tired and I miss you, and I honestly do not care about anything else. I just want to move past it.”

“Just like that.” There’s fondness in his voice, now, and even as Rei tries to lead them back to their quarters, Theron pulls her back towards him into an embrace, but even as he wraps his arms around her he’s gentle, hesitant — and she can’t tell if it’s his injury or his guilt that makes him so cautious, even now. “I’m sorry. For all of this. I’ve missed you, too, and I love you, so much, and…” A catch of his breath, a quiet, shaky laugh. “And I really don’t know what I would’ve done if you hadn’t let me back in.”

She doesn’t respond, not right away, simply content to be held. But then she pulls away, just enough to look up at Theron — at the way he stares at her like she’s the best damn thing to ever happen to him, which isn’t fair, not really, not with the way it makes her heart thrum erratic in her chest even after all this time — and the glib remark she’d had prepared falls unspoken from her lips. “You’re stuck with me,” she says instead, beaming up at him, because it feels right — him, and this moment, and Odessen, all of it.

She would tear the galaxy apart for him, and he would piece it back together for her. And maybe that’s enough, for now.

#swtor #theron shan #reiyaxa tag #otp: my favorite mistake #fic: rei #brooke writes things