#really none of this is important because there is a literal war going on and people on all sides are nedlessly dying every single day | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ellestra · 2 months

Text

Paul Muad'Dib Usul

Dune Part 2 had more changes to the story than Part 1. It's not just omitting stuff for the sake of time but also changing the roles of many prominent characters. On one hand I understand why it feels like changing the story and characters. I felt it too watching - especially with Jessica and Chani becoming so different.

But on the other I feel it makes final message clearer. There are so many people who mistake this for a hero's story. This is why the white saviour phrase is so often thrown around. I feel like this version of the ending makes it very clear that is in not what Paul becomes.

It makes it sadder too since we see him try to avoid this and just be part of his new home. But the weight of expectations of so many people leave very limited options - from the believers and Jessica to his old life and Gurney Halleck - they all push for what they want him to be so they can get their fight and their revenge. And none of them is interested in the cost. Just like Stilgar they see the opportunities to get what they want and ignore everything else (which really is so common in wars it's not surprising even 20 000 more years in the future nothing changes). So Paul is left with only two options - it's either swim with the current and keep some control over where it takes him or go against it and drown.

It is of course magnified by the other side doing all they can to stack the deck for themselves so it's either victory or annihilation. And trying to pull the rains out of the hands of forces controlling the universe is never not bloody.

Reverend Mother Mohiam admits here directly that Bene Gesserit didn't just want a Kwisatz Haderach. They wanted one they could control. Just like they planted religions to control the populaces of countless worlds. But this kind of manipulation is easy to get out of hand when infighting happens and in the end not even chosen one can chose how it ends.

Even knowing the truth doesn't stop it. Even knowing what will happen doesn't stop it. Avalanche of history only stops at the bottom and you can only hope not to be one buried by it. But you can still judge those who started it.

The parts under the cut are bit more spoilery (about spice and controlling the universe)

So I don't necessarily disagree with the changes. Like I understand why Alia the way she is in books wouldn't really work. And I certainly get why they cut Count Fenrig. But there is one thing I wish they did leave - the Space Guild confrontation. Because this is missing important part of the message - the person who rules the Empire isn't the Emperor but the one who controls spice. Paul taking the title is just a formality.

Spice has always been the clear metaphor for oil. Spice is what allows for space travel and without it world become stranded alone. People are literally addicted to it and its life prolonging properties. Who controls the Spice controls the universe. And the person who can destroy something controls it. And this means there is no stopping the jihad. No bombing Arrakis from space. No travel ban on Fremen from Spacing Guild.

This allows Paul to destroy the old balance of power. He controls it all but he only does it through fulfilling other people expectations of who he is. And that means he becomes figurehead of a holy war. Those who helped him win now awaiting their rewards in blood for all that was done to them.

#paul atreides #paul muad'dib #muad'dib #usul #lady jessica #jessica atreides #chani kynes #chani #gurney halleck #stilgar #bene gesserit #kwisatz haderach #reverend mother gaius helen mohiam #fremen #arrakis #dune #dune part two #dune part 2 #dune 2024

323 notes · View notes

gallusrostromegalus · 11 months

Note

AEIWAM : what are the divisions specialities actually ? Like obviously the 4th heal and the 11h fight but like. The 9th? Do crosswords?

BOY AM I GLAD YOU ASKED BECAUSE THIS IS SOME OF THE BEST RETROACTIVE WORLD BUILDING I HAD TO DO AND I'M PROUD OF IT.

So in canon, almost none of the guard squads have "specialist" jobs, mostly because it's not terribly important to the plot, and because the court guards were essentially formed as an ad-hoc mercenary gang to protect one city specifically, but since Yamamoto didn't have to remain loyal to any noble family specifically, he kept getting pulled in as an arbiter and more and more responsibilities heaped upon him until the Court guard squads were acting as a De-Facto government, until the old man got pissed off with being involved in everybody else's business and rounded up a gang of nerds to do that for him so he could go do sword stuff. Seriously, everything about the administrative Bullshit in Soul Society makes sense when viewed through the lens of 'this shit was made ad-hoc out of what was available by people who only kind of knew what they were doing.

So the main government of Soul Society functions approximately like so:

Royal Guard:

Only technically part of the government, the Royal guard consists of The Monk who is responsible for making sure nobody steals any more of the soul king's body parts, and the four people he chose to help/didn't want left unattended in the Spirit World: The Guy who makes Zanpaktou, the Guy who can (theoretically) heal the Soul King, the lady who can literally mess with the fabric of reality and the lady who can create new souls. They spend nearly all their time in the Royal Realm trying to prevent the universe from unrevealing further, and don't really have administrative power so much as if any one of them decided to, they could wreck house of anyone in the spirit world, so if they say something, the central 46 listens and obeys.

Central 46:

The Highest Administrative level, sets society-wide policies, mediates disputes between provinces, wrangles the noble houses, assigns aid and designs social programs. It's comprised of 46 sages and other wise people appointed by the 46 as they die off. IN THEORY "Let a bunch of academics and philosophers who presumably know what they're doing make policy" isn't *that* bad an idea by itself, but it got coupled with "Also, to make sure these guys aren't being bribed or politically pressured, let's keep them in near-total isolation :)" and that's when things got weird.

The Central 46 does try it's best to maintain a peaceful and prosperous society, but it's got to strike a weird balance and the isolation sure does not fucking help maintain a cognizant worldview.

Noble Houses:

So the soul society, by the way they measure time*, only JUST got out of a major warring states period because magical Germany invaded and the guy that lead the army also managed to get The Mandate Of Heaven, but a lot of those formerly-warring states are still around, especially the ones that stole pieces of the soul king. They're not governmental bodies, but the families have shitloads of money, private armed forces and political influence. Think of the worst possible combination of magacorporation, mercenary army and royal dynasty. The are, unfortunately, still a political force to be reckoned with.

*Badly.

Provincial Governors:

So the Soul Society is divided up into Districts like so:

(Embiggen to actually see the damn thing)

The Seireitei is in the center, with the districts counting out until the central 46 got to the outer edge they could theoretically get forces and/or emergency food to in under a month and declared everything after that "District 80" AKA "You're on your own" No taxes are collected in the 80th district and people who don't want to deal with the soul society government often try to strike it on their own out there.

Each of those little rectangles is a district, and each of them has approximately the same number of people living in it- the lower districts are densely populated and, due to their proximity to the Seireitei, well-developed. The districts generally get less developed and less densely populated as you get farter from the center, but this varies wildly by the competence of that district's Daimyo or Governor. West 51 is a much more developed district than it's position would dictate, because it's Daimyo is canny and made good use of it's mineral resources and position in inter-mountain shipping. South 14 Should be one of the nicest districts, but their Governor is a moron who keeps picking fights with the neighboring districts like he's allowed to annex them, and the district has been sanctioned from hell to breakfast over it.

Gotei-13 / Court Guard Squads:

Sort of the executive branch of the Central 46, founded out of Yamamoto's gang of criminals he rounded up to deal with the Quincy invasion back when Rome was collapsing. So the court guard acts out the orders of the Central 46, and *theoretically* has authority over the noble houses and provincial governors, but they are pretty much constantly dancing on the edge of another warring states period, so things can get... tricky.

ALSO DID NOT HELP that The Monk who guards what's left of the Soul King came down from the Royal Realm and foisted a bunch of trans-dimensional responsibilities onto them but the Specific duties of the 13 court guards in AEIWAM are as follows:

(It's worth noting that the order of the court guard squads was determined literally by the order that the 12 criminals signed the agreement with Yamamoto to protect the seireitei, not the order of importance)

Division 1: ADMINISTRATION Oh god there is so much coordination to do between the central 46, the running of internal affairs, recruitment, training new shinigami, coordinating assignments that take more than one division's input. securing and distributing funding, etc. It's main jobs are: assigning work based on policy from the central 46, running the Shinigami Academy, and actually running the Gotei-13.

Division 2: SPY SHIT Gotei-13 is a shady-ass organization with a lot of enemies and that's not about to change. The second division is responsible for keeping an eye on the provinces and noble houses and anything else of interest, "Handling things quietly" for the Gotei-13, and preventing the Central 46 from being corrupted or assassinated. The Shihon Clan has historically held the captainacy of the 2nd division as part of the compromise Yamamoto struck with the noble houses at the founding of the court guard squads to end the civil wars- that each of the 4 noble houses would hold a captain's position, until the noble houses fell apart or the court guard did. This gave the Shihon clan a GREAT incentive to undermine the shit out of other noble houses, and Yamamoto gave them his blessing to do so. Ironically, the Shihon clan was one of the first to collapse.

Division 3: INTERNAL AFFAIRS Law Enforcement, but specifically the Seireitei and shinigami/martial court/jail. The court guard kind of lives and dies by how much it's respected* and it's essential the Gotei-13 follow strict ethical standards and also a tight adherence to authority lest one of the squads break off and start a civil war. Accepting Bribes and Defying Orders are much more severe crimes than say, excessive collateral damage. The 3rd division is responsible for investigating complaints, mediating disputes between divisions, and generally making sure everyone is behaving properly. *By the noble houses, Daimyos and central 46. The average civilian? not so much.

Division 4 Medical This division was actually the FIRST established, even before the court guard really became Squads. It was Chigiri and her pack of field surgeons that commanded Yamamoto's respect and gave him the idea of letting the other criminals have minions too. 4th divison is responsible for maintaining the health of the court guard- not just emergency medicine, but vaccinations, post-service medical care, and civil sanitation- keeping the streets clean and water safe is the #1 way to prevent deaths. Until recently, this meant a lot of trained medics were doing a lot of grunt work, until Zaraki, a guy from districts where Dysentery is still the #1 killer, successful argued a proposal to Unohana that her medics should be managing other, less-in-demand squads doing the labor, which would get the jobs done a hell of a lot faster, and not back up triage as much. Unohana, who had previously not *trusted* other squads to do the work reliably, finally relented and accepted some damn help.

Division 5: Rukongai Affairs The 5th division is responsible for coordinating efforts between the Gotei-13 and the Provincial Governors- Hollow Eradication, Disaster Relief, additional armed forces to help local police, Helping distribute grain to mitigate famine, etc.

Division 6: External Affairs Responsible for representing the Gotei-13 to other groups and dealing with Noble House Bullshit specifically. While Noble House Bullshit is 95% of what they do, but technically, they're also responsible for handling diplomatic relations with the Beastfolk in the eastern districts, Las Noches after the winter war in the west, Any Kami that might come through, and Hell, if they ever get a line open. The Kuchiki family has held the 6th Division captaincy for generations as a peacekeeping measure between the gotei-13 and the noble houses.

Division 7: Incoming Souls The reason the soul society doesn't reunite people with their families when they die is that they do not actually have control over who reincarnates as themselves (and if they retain their memories), who is reborn as a baby in the spirit world, and what district they get assigned to- that's all decided at the moment of a Soul's death by Hell, using a Metric the Shinigami can only guess at. That said, the 7th still can do a lot- Souls that had to be cleansed with Konsho go through the 7th division and are escorted to their assigned districts. Other, non-hollowfied but odd case souls will end up in the pocket dimension that serves as the queue into the afterlife- people with high spiritual power, animals that achieved personhood in the world of the living and other nonhuman persons, and somtimes spirits who were almost certainly supposed to go to a different afterlife all come through. The 7th division is also charged with keeping a running tally on important statistics like the relative balance between souls, who got hollowfied and why, collecting data on who goes to hell when konsho is prefromed on them and why, and other data to try and work out Hell's metric backwards.

Division 8: Income and Funding The court guard squads are... kind of taxpayer funded. The Daimyos collect taxes from civilians, they pay those taxes to the central 46, and the central 46 disburses some of that money to the Gotei-13, but the truth is, for all the duties they're expected to preform, they're wildly underfunded. So the court guard has had to get... inventive to make sure everyone gets paid and they can do what they need to. Investments in industries, ownership of weird land grants, taking out loans, selling merchandise and straight-up schmooze have all been used by the 8th division to make sure the bills get paid. Shunsui is, by that measure, the best captain the division has ever had- he's shrewd and had astonishingly good luck when it comes to finances so there hasn't been a pay strike since he took over. Probably his best idea was handing the branding and product design of the Gikon to the Shinigami Women's Association- that one paid mad dividends.

Division 9: Information Services The ninth division is most famously home to the Seireitei's first and most largely-ciculated newspaper, but it's also the records office, PAYROLL, library, document archives, data collection and data analytics. Also, tech support. Also also: manage all the arts programs, propaganda and festivals. This is why Kaname was load-bearing to Aizen's plan.

Division 10: Living World Affairs The 10th division was responsible for monitoring the living world- mostly keeping track of hollow appearances, but also: what the remaining Quincies are up to, reporting back on useful technological advancements, any other weird shit that turns up there, and keeping track of all the Shinigami on deployment to the living world (mostly 10th division but the post-war population boom means every division's having to chip in now.

Division 11: Emergency/Heavy Deployment Every time the Gotei-13 had to do some heavy lifting, it's the 11th division's job. Mass outbreak of hollows? 11th's job. Emergency Dam repair to prevent a flood? 11th division muscle time. Daimyo got funny ideas about conquering a neighboring district? 11th division. Funcking Quincies again? 11th division. Rampaging Kami afflicted by a terrible curse? you know who to call. This was the SECOND Division to be founded, because the actual sentence that came out of Yamamoto's mouth was "Chigiri, you and your gremlins put my guts back in, Yachiru, round up some assholes and DEAL WITH THAT FUCKING THING." and the 11th's prerogative and hiring practices have not changed since. Since the 11th's work is more intermittent, there are long periods between jobs for them, and it's only recently they've been allowed to pitch in on regular maintenance and rehabilitate their reputation as a bunch of lazy degenerates.

Divison 12: Supplies (more recently, Research and Development) Prior to Kisuke Urahara's weird science boner, the 12th Division's primary job was the manufacture and supply of everything the Shinigami would need to do their jobs. Uniforms, Gigai, medical supplies, communicators, rations, Gikon, the actual buildings in the Seireitei, bedding, Protective gear- if a Shinigami received it for their job, it was made by the 12th division. Despite previous captain Kirio Hikifune being the most accomplished chef in the history of Soul Society, it's Mayuri that has made the most profound mark on Soul Society Cuisine with the fast-prepared, acceptable-tasting and surprisingly nutritious meals he developed to deal with the mass influx of souls after WW2, and the franchise distribution centers combined with his attempts at children's educational programming mean that Mayuri occupies a cultural niche in Soul Society not unlike Krusty The Clown.

Division 13: Magical Research, Kido Corps Until recently, the Kido Corps was a seperate division governed under the purview of the central 46, and the 13th division was doing it's research into Hado, Bakudo and Haikido independently, but as the two organizations worked increasingly closely together, they began to share more until the catastrophic events of Turn Back The Pendulum left the Kido Corps severely depleted and without leadership, at which point Yamamoto persuaded the central 46 to let the 13th division absorb the rest of the Kido corps and take on their work.

So that's how the government in Soul Society is SUPPOSESD to work.

#AEIWAM #an elephant is warm and mushy #bleach fanfiction #bleach #gotei-13 #long post

471 notes · View notes

beautifulhigh · 11 days

Note

Hi hi!! It's unfair of me to ask you to actually write the full essay on the rwrb red room kiss scene, but I saw your tags and am very interested in at least what the main thesis would be, if you feel like sharing!! No worries if not 😊 Have a good night/day/whatever time it is where you are!

The last few weeks have been, well. They've Been™ and I'm going to use this wonderful ask to dust off my overthinking tag and write a meta post on this movie, these boys, and then hope more than three people care what I have to say.

The Red Room kiss scene is Iconic™ and Important™ and in this essay I (really) will discuss agency, framing, and why it always had to be Alex to be the one to make the move.

While book!Alex takes book!Henry to the Red Room, here he's waiting. Bundle of nervous energy. He doesn't know what to do with himself, how to hold himself, how to present himself when Henry turns up. He's backlit in this (which is a theatre technique, I see you Matthew) but it also adds to the drama and tension of the scene.

The (in)famous painting of Hamilton, about to bear witness to things.

We jump cut between Alex trying to find... something. Here he is realising his shirt has come slightly undone and he wants to try and be somewhat presentable. At least for the moment. But it speaks to Alex's physicality in this scene because he is shifting and moving so much that his clothing is shifting. There's also an interpretation that this suit represents the formality of the situation - the Prime Minister's dinner, at which he (the First Son) and the boy he wants to kiss (the actual Prinec) are supposed to be front and centre and the picture of formality.

He's coming undone in this moment because he's the First Son and he's waiting for the Prince, but he's also Alex and he's waiting for Henry.

Ah, yes. The casual lean against the wall. Fancy seeing you here, your Royal Highness, what do you think of the menu? But there's grounding here too. When you're spiralling focusing on a physical point of contact between you and and something can help ground you.

It's also a defensive stance in a way. You shall not pass, I'm not moving. Alex is claiming space and territory and he's controlling it.

"How dare you fucking kiss me, run away, ghost me, then walk into the White House like nothing changed." This is closed off, defensive, protective - probably why it's the quickest of the poses to be dismissed. He's got his back against the wall like he's scared or ready to come out fighting. And, in a way, both of those are true.

Book!Alex is mid-crisis on his bisexuality and while he logically knows he is very much into Henry, he's not gotten to the point of turning theory into reality.

Movie!Alex is more chill about being into guys, but this attraction to Henry is confusing him. He hates the guy. He wants to punch him in the mouth. With his mouth.

(What? That's literally book canon: and if he weren’t already hell-bent on destroying Henry’s infuriating idiot face with his mouth right now, he would consider doing it with his fist.)

Casual lean against the table, less staged and jarring than the extended arm against the wall.

But then Henry walks in and Alex stands to attention and he is... rapt. He is calm and composed and he is focused. We're back to the back-lit position which helps frame him with a near-halo effect.

And you can see that he is relaxed. There's a slight drop in the jaw, his shoulders are sloped and rounded. Because none on what he was trying to convey before matters. Henry is here.

"Look" he starts with - he's expecting a fight. He's expecting Alex to go off on one for the kiss, for the liberty taken. Even if Alex is willing to forget that it ever happened, take Henry's secret to the grave, Henry gets one thing right in this.

"my behaviour was appalling"

Because it was. Look, Hen, I love you and I'm with Alex in the feeling that I will go to war for you to see you happy and safe. But you did kinda kiss him without consent (harsh reading) and you did ghost him without apology (soft reading) and for a boy raised in the Royal Household that... well... it's pretty much top items on the Very Bad Behaviour list. He did not act with decorum or dignity, he did not act in the way that his status and position demands.

(That's OK, Hen. Because the boy under the linden tree wasn't the Prince. It's OK to not be him, and Alex is going to spend the rest of his life loudly loving the man, not the prince.)

"Shut up, stop talking." // “Shut up, shut all the way up, oh my God,” Alex hisses

Because even though both versions of Alex said he wanted to talk to Henry, in the moment that's the last thing he wants to do. And actions speak louder than words, right?

Why it had to be Alex

Henry needed to make the first move, that New Year's kiss, because there needed to be something to make Alex realise that this thing he's feeling is very much reciprocated, and that Henry wants it too. If Alex had kissed Henry for the first time on New Year's Eve/Day then it would have been too much of a leap. Alex, at whatever stage of his bisexual journey, has no clear idea of Henry's orientation at that party. It's only with retrospective viewing that he realises that Henry was low-key flirting, and that the sharing of these deeply personal moments wasn't just a "two bros in a hot tub" thing.

So Henry had to kiss Alex first but then he had to run because there was no way that the mostly-closeted, private Prince could accept that a) he fucking kissed a boy, b) said boy is the one he's been dreaming of since Rio/Melbourne, and c) the boy kinda?? kissed him back?? Henry will have been having a low-grade anxiety attack all through January (and trying to reclaim some control with the date he went on in the book).

In this moment, Alex knows all the pieces. He's played this logic game to its conclusion and he knows all the facts. 1) Henry is gay. 2) Henry is into him. 3) He's into Henry. That last fact is something Henry isn't fully aware of (or at least can't bring himself to believe it to be true) and so it has to be Alex.

He doesn't want Henry to say something that would get in the way of this, doesn't want to hear any kind of pre-prepared speech of "yeah, we're better off as friends" that always happens when the couple get too close to getting together too early in the run time. Alex is full on shutting that down, shutting Henry up, and he gives as good as he got.

"Wait a minute" // Henry’s too shocked to respond, mouth falling open slackly in a way that’s more surprise than invitation, and for a horrified moment Alex thinks he calculated all wrong, but then Henry’s kissing him back, and it’s everything.

And this time it's both of them. Framed between Hamilton and the books. The American political trailblazer and the literary. In the space between? There's our boys.

Alex's hand is on the wall again and he's controlling the space but Henry is very much in it. He's protective but in a different way.

In one frantic motion, Alex knocks the candelabra off the table next to them and pushes Henry onto it so he’s sitting with his back against—Alex looks up and almost breaks into deranged laughter—a portrait of Alexander Hamilton. Henry’s legs fall open readily and Alex crowds up between them, wrenching Henry’s head back into another searing kiss. They’re really moving now, wrecking each other’s suits, Henry’s lip caught between Alex’s teeth, the portrait’s frame rattling against the wall when Henry’s head drops back and bangs into it. Alex is at his throat, and he’s somewhere between angry and giddy, caught up in the space between years of sworn hate and something else he’s begun to suspect has always been there. It’s white-hot, and he feels crazy with it, lit up from the inside. Henry gives as good as he gets, hooking one knee around the back of Alex’s thigh for leverage, delicate royal sensibilities nowhere in the cut of his teeth. Alex has been learning for a while Henry isn’t what he thought, but it’s something else to feel it this close up, the quiet burn in him, the pent-up person under the perfect veneer who tries and pushes and wants. He drops a hand onto Henry’s thigh, feeling the electrical pulse there, the smooth fabric over hard muscle. He pushes up, up, and Henry’s hand slams down over his, digging his nails in.

The sensibility of the suits is on its way out, they're not the First Son and the Prince. And Alex is taking the lead.

Agency

Henry is somewhat passive in this - although he is fully engaged - but it's Alex who set this in motion. Pun intended. Alex who pushed him against the wall. Alex who pushed him up onto the table and hiked his leg up around his hip, Alex who is driving in. Because Alex needs Henry to know that third fact. The one he's worked out, the one that Henry is just catching up with. This isn't payback, it's not some prank. Alex Wants™.

There's a scene I'm writing in my current FirstPrince WiP in which Alex and Henry have a charged moment. And Henry wants to act on it but those princely sensibilities get in the way and he can't let himself be led into doing something that could be used against him. If Henry made all the moves then the accusation of him taking advantage, of the inherant imbalance that comes with status and titles and positions of power. So in the scene, and here, Alex takes the lead. There's no way anyone could accuse Henry of forcing Alex into doing this.

(Good luck getting Alex to do ANYTHING he doesn't want to.)

So Alex gives and Henry takes and he gets the memo very quickly.

Fact number three. Alex wants this too.

Then Movie!Amy walks in on them (which IMO is way funnier than Book!Amy hissing through a crack in the door) and these idiots try to act like they weren't redefining International Relations a second ago. Alex is by the painting, Henry is by the books. They've gone back to their sides and they're playing at being interested in what they find there. But they're not, it's all for show, someone who gives a passing glance at this point sees this part of them, this side of them The First Son and the Prince: the politician and the literary.

They're both backlit, they're in line even if it doesn't look like it, Alex is no longer on Henry's right, and they're both trying to act like the people that others could see them as.

But we - and they - know better. 1) Henry is gay. 2) Henry is into Alex. 3) Alex is into Henry.

4) Everyone is on the same page now.

(Also I know Casey talked about seeing the Red Room on a White House tour and so that's why they included a scene in that room in their book, but I cannot ignore the fact that red = love and passion and danger and fire [the counter to the water motif] and it's a warm colour designed to excite.)

#jen answers stuff #overthinking jen is overthinking #firstprince #alex claremont diaz #prince henry of wales #red white and royal blue #rwrb #rwrb movie #meta post #long post #henry fox mountchristen windsor #otp: history huh

73 notes · View notes

fromchaostocosmos · 9 months

Text

I'm very frustrated with how the various youtubers and streamers talk about Ben Shapiro.

Because they do not understand or have the proper context when talking about him and everything he represents.

They also often go into antisemitic territory when mocking him, while it is unintentional and something they may not not even know they are doing, they are doing it none the less.

When they mock his voice or call him Shabibo that is actually antisemitic territory.

Due to a history of Jewish people having our names stripped from us and voices and names mocked. Now I too find his voice to be personally annoying, but I won't mock it because of said history.

It is not about the curtsy that Ben Shapiro deserves or doesn't deserve, but rather about deciding when it is okay to employ antisemitism against a Jewish person.

The answer is never.

The overwhelming majority of these commentators are not Jewish and the few that are Jewish don't seem to know any of the important details that make what Ben Shapiro says so dangerous for all Jews and such a false representation.

See what is not presented in discussions about him is that Ben Shapiro is not there to pull in a Jewish audience he is there as a token Jew to help further pull in an christian audience.

That is what makes it all so very insidious in nature. And sadly some Jewish people get fooled by this too because they do not look beyond the front facing facade he wears like costume, but they do not actually listen the words he says.

Ben Shapiro harps about a 'war on christmas' which no Jewish person would seriously do or care for. Especially any Ashkenazi Jews with our very long long history of being murdered in mass on xmas. Christmas eve is became seen a spiritually impure night that it would be called Nittle Nacht in Yiddish and Jewish people would purposefully not study Torah that night.

American Jews, like many others who belong to non-christian religious and cultural groups, have to deal with living a majority Christian country and country that culturally Christian and only makes concession for Christianity.

Has Ben Shapiro ever talked about that or the actual fights to get time off for our Holidays? No because that doesn't fit the narrative. But business having employees switch from 'merry christmas' to 'happy holidays' most certainly does.

Ben Shapiro has explicitly stated that he believes that conception is when life begins which is something to no in keeping with any Jewish held belief anywhere.

We hold life begins at first breath, the mother comes first (I wrote mother because that is wording used in the various writings, but really it would be the pregnant individual comes first), and that it doesn't just need to physical health on the line it can also be one's mental health at stake in order to need an abortion

Ben Shapiro talks about Judeo-Christan values, which a bullshit term that was created after the Holocaust to make it seem like Christian Antisemitism played no role in what happened and that the Church was not a guilty party. It is also a term that essentially holds Jewish people hostage.

He uses this term and talks about these shared values. So I have to ask what values?

Is respecting the elderly, caring for the sick, kindness to others, tending to the poor, and such? Because those are universal values and can be found in pretty much every culture and religion.

What about original sin? Heaven and Hell? Can someone be the literal child of G-d? Does G-d have literal hands, a actual face? What is the gender of G-d?

Just some questions to start with since you know we clearly have the same values and stuff.

Because Judaism would say: No such thing as original sin and in fact Hebrew doesn't have a word for sin we have words that mean things that wrongly translated in English as sin, but no, word for sin. We hold all people are born blank we go through and have experiences and make choices and those choices speak to who we are.

We believe in This World and The World to Come and the spiritual washing machine so to speak, but no a big nope to heaven and hell. No to Satan too. There is the HaSatan which means prosecutor who is as the name means in the Ultimate Court.

When we say "we are the children of G-d" it is poetic flourish and is metaphorical not literal no one can be the literal hild of G-d.

Same way we anthropomorphize G-d so that we have an easier time contextualizing G-d because otherwise it can be hard to wrap your mind around.

G-d is both genderfull and genderless at the same time. It depends on what you are talking about, in what context, and what aspect of G-d of you using. For example the Voice G-d and Presence of G-d are both in the feminine in Hebrew.

These have just been a tiny amount of examples from a vast vast array them.

My point is that if all these people are going to talk about Ben Shapiro especially ones with large followings please bring on someone who is actually knowledge and qualified to talk about this so the facts can properly be presented and explained.

Like I on occasion will listen to Leftovers podcast in background it hosted by Ethan from H3H and Hassan Piker and in the most recent episode that I was listening, which I had to stop because I was getting to annoyed by, they where talking about Ben Shapiro.

It was very frustrating for me. I get that Hassan might be very politically involved and knowledge about stuff, don't really know I don't watch him, but I was thinking the whole time that this is not an area you know.

You are talking about Jewish stuff and things related Jewish views points and you have no clue what you are talking about. You are talking about a religion and culture you just don't know anything about and are trying to debunk Ben Shapiro.

It will not work because you don't have necessary information and understanding to do so.

And you are missing the biggest point of it all which is again Ben is there as a draw for Christians. Because for these kinds of Christians having a Jew give a stamp of approval gives it some kind veneer of legitimacy.

It validates them and allows them to not have to feel guilty for crimes against Jewish people that they are party too.

This doesn't mean they like Jews or want us around or interested in our problems or helping us.

It is all about them in the same way they have Candace Owens tell them all the thing they want to hear so they never have to self-examine or reflect on anything and can assuage their white-guilt and keep of being horrific anti-Black.

They don't care about Black people or Black issues because they listen to a Black woman talk.

It is all for self-serving interests that they have been Ben and Candace there. While many seem to get that point (if you didn't get it before well get it now) in regards to Candace Owens and the purpose of her employment they miss that very important detail when comes to Ben Shapiro.

#ben shapiro #antisemitism #jumblr #christian antisemitism #evangelical antisemitism #protestant antisemitism #an essay of a post

336 notes · View notes

kanansdume · 7 months

Text

The problem with Sabine being made a Jedi isn't that it's out of character for her to be a Jedi in the sense that she doesn't have the right personality for it or whatever. Sabine in Rebels DOES actually show herself capable of understanding and learning Jedi values and philosophies really really well. And more than that, she shows herself capable of INCORPORATING Jedi values and philosophies into her own culture without having to eliminate important aspects of either one. She can appreciate weapons and armor AND be merciful and face her fears. All of this can be true at once. If Sabine HAD been Force sensitive, she arguably could've made a really great Jedi and you'll never find me saying otherwise.

The problem with Sabine made a Jedi is that it breaks fundamental WORLDBUILDING in order to retcon Sabine into someone who is Force sensitive so that she can be a supporting character in someone else's story. Sabine is NOT Force sensitive in Rebels. She just isn't. It's never hinted at, it's never implied, nothing. She just isn't Force sensitive. The reason she gets to use it in the Ahsoka show is because they decided everybody gets to use the Force if they try hard enough at it. It's not really ABOUT Sabine at all, it's about how it intentionally messes up something that pretty much everybody accepted about how the Star Wars worldbuilding worked in order to bash the Jedi and force Sabine into a supporting role for Ahsoka.

The reason people say Sabine is out of character has very little to do with her being a Jedi and everything to do with her BEHAVIOR. Sabine by the end of Rebels is mature, merciful, and respectful of other's choices. Sabine ten years later on the Ahsoka show is arrogant, impatient, and bratty. She acts more like the 15 year old we saw back in season 1 of Rebels rather than the 30 year old character ten years out from who she was by season 4 of Rebels. Sabine goes through so much growth in Rebels. She learns how to be more understanding towards people, including those who seem like her enemies. She learns how to extend the hand of friendship to people through that understanding and find ways to connect to people who, on the outside, don't seem similar to her at all. She learns patience and faith and trust in people after she'd lost it in her years at the Academy. She learns how to face her own fears and doubts and actually do what it takes to make amends for the mistakes she's made. She learns responsibility and the sacrifices you sometimes have to make in favor of the greater good.

NONE OF THAT is seemingly still there in the Ahsoka show's version of Sabine. That growth is completely and utterly undone and she never gets it back and the only reason we're ever given for why she seems like a completely new character half her age is something that happened off screen years earlier. It doesn't even connect to the losses she experienced IN REBELS.

But she's made this way because it puts her into a better position for AHSOKA'S storyline of dealing with worries about her Padawan becoming like Anakin. That's literally it. They wanted a Padawan who shared some of Ahsoka and Anakin's more negative qualities so that Ahsoka could be freaked out and have to learn how to accept that sometimes people will make mistakes and it won't necessarily mean that they are going to become genocidal monster.s

The problem with Sabine being a Jedi and the reason people say she's out of character are two completely separate issues.

#star wars #sabine wren #ahsoka show #ahsoka spoilers

192 notes · View notes

hartlesshart · 3 months

Text

I have something to say - If you aren’t going to read the whole thing, then skip it. But I really hope you do. My intention is not to cause drama. I just felt this was important to say because I love this community and I want it to be the best it can be.

A few days ago, a very unfortunate thing happened on a certain post about Talanah and Seyka. I called someone out on what was a case of weaponizing a racist incident. Instead of having a meaningful discussion, my comments were deleted and called “inappropriate accusations.”

Long story short - several reblogged and commented on this post about how Talanah was constantly being tagged as Seyka. To be clear, this is not a good thing and I believe every single one of those post to be valid in their frustration. But I have also seen it happen the other way around to my own work (Seyka tagged as Talanah). None of this is okay but while it is exhausting, remember that mistakes do happen.

So I made a comment about my experience and my comment was dismissed because apparently it “hadn’t been seen.” I responded to this with an honest truth of how dismissals of experience affects people like me.

The thing about racism is that it doesn’t happen in a vacuum. You don’t get to pick and choose who it happens to just to fit your narrative. Dismissing it because you didn’t personally see it is harmful, especially to fans from marginalized groups who may not feel comfortable sharing their experiences in the future.

My comment was deleted and later referred to as an “inappropriate accusation” and “harassment.” Was it an accusation? Yes. Was it inappropriate? No. Was it harassment? Absolutely not - I took time to respond so it wouldn’t be seen that way. However, the comments involving Talanah mistags were kept. The comments defending a fictional character. To be clear, I am not saying these comments are not justified. It is incredibly frustrating to work so hard on a piece only for it to be tagged as another character. However, the fact other comments (including my personal experience), that challenged the narrative that these mistaggings were only happening to Talanah, were being deleted is problematic and a form of silencing. Intentional or not - this is a racist microaggression - and yes, I do deal with stuff like this in real life.

It became immediately clear to me that the goal here wasn’t to raise awareness or do anything about the racist misnaming but instead use it to put down a group in this community. And judging a whole group by the actions of a few bad apples is literally where prejudice begins. All of this pettiness stemming from - let’s face it - an unnecessary shipping war in a FICTIONAL STORY. I was incredibly disappointed and saddened because I know we are better than this.

I am not speaking out because I want to cause drama. Undoing systemic racism is something I am deeply passionate about because it affects so many people in my life. If someone calls you out on a problematic take, please take a moment to listen and reflect, even if it makes you uncomfortable. Do not follow the impulse to block or delete. This work is extremely exhausting for everyone, but it is SO important. We all carry prejudices and biases. We are human. But we can also learn because we are all human. I have been called out many times in life by my friends. I have made so many ignorant comments and mistakes. And I will still make them. Hearing I have is not easy at all but it is all part of growing.

Speaking out like this isn’t really my thing but I felt the need to make a comment that can’t be deleted by anyone. I love the Horizon community and I want it to be a safe and inclusive space for everyone no matter where you are from. That is what these games are about. Understanding people from different backgrounds, opinions and traditions in order to work together.

You don’t have to be fans of the same characters. You can love or be disappointed with the canon. You can respectfully give and listen to critiques of these characters. And you can celebrate representation even if it’s not the direction you wanted Horizon to go in.

Whatever these games have given you is yours to keep.

Just don’t be an asshole about it (at least in public, what you do in private is none of anyone’s business so…) -> that goes to all fans in all groups. It is never okay to harass or hurt anyone - and especially over fictional characters.

(Also please respect the devs - we are lucky they are able to pour their hearts into this game for all of us to enjoy and frankly the direction is their creative choice)

This vibrant community is full of so much talent and love for this amazing series. I have made some truly incredible friends, worked on some hilarious and delightful collaborations and have seen wicked talent come together to make something special. Just look on the horizon, and you’ll see a certain 100% fan-made game coming soon, which has a little something for everyone!

Keep creating. Ignore the bad apples. Don’t be an asshole. I’m going back to drawing silly things. - from the hart

#horizon zero dawn #horizon forbidden west #horizon critical #horizon fandom #talanah #seyka #burning shores #fight racism #microaggressions #be antiracist #horizon #hfw

104 notes · View notes

himboskywalker · 3 months

Note

This is super random but I was reading your book recs post from several weeks ago and was curious about you saying you have serious beef with Song of Achilles? Genuinely SO curious why when I would assume it was practically written for you?

I am going to try very very hard for this to be an objective review and not a frothing at the mouth rant but I know I'm probably going to fail. My grievances with Song of Achilles are manyfold lol

Firstly, I can't stand what Miller did for Patroclus's character. She makes him a pacificist for some fucking reason????Patroclus was a hero of the Trojan war, he LED the Myrmidons into combat. He was Achilles's squire because he mirked another kid as a child, he was his wartime companion. He was so skilled on horseback he was said to have been taught horsemanship by Poseidon himself. He dies in combat, impersonating Achilles, who was literally a demigod. Which means Patroclus was a skilled enough fighter Hector mistook him as the son of a fucking god. He killed Sarpedon who was one of Greece's greatest fighters! And Miller wrote him as a little uwu I don't want to fight, timid shadow of Achilles. Like if you want your protagonist to not be a fighter that's fine, but then don't write a book about one of mythology's greatest fighting pairs and make one of them not a fighter??? In no iteration of any myth of Patroclus is he NOT a warrior.

Secondly, we are never shown any reasoning for why Achilles and Patroclus love each other. Patroclus drones on and on for a sweet eternity of how beautiful Achilles is, and Achilles reciprocates that he thinks Patroclus is also beautiful. But they literally don't have a relationship outside of sex. We are literally not shown a single reason for why they love one another and what their relationship is built on. If your entire book is a romance then have some meat to the romance. It will always read to me as someone who fundamentally does not understand queer romance, and so approaches it as shallowly as you possibly can.

And this brings me to my third and possibly most important grievance with the book. Miller explicitly writes Achilles and Patroclus as gay in Song of Achilles. That's not how sexuality really worked for the Greeks but whatever, you're writing your book through a modern lens for a modern audience. But the romance is framed as taboo for some reason? They are genuinely afraid of being perceived or recognized as a couple? Like really???? In Greece, the period when these men would have been sexually fluid, when especially as warriors these bonds were encouraged???Also you can't take characters who interacted with their sexuality in the complicated ways of the past and then shoehorn them into modern boxes that simply don't fit the culture that acts as the framework for these stories. The Greeks did not perceive of sexuality in this way, these men who have always been written as sexually fluid, would not have thought or acted in this way. And they especially would not have fit in the modern perspective of gay men CLEARLY written by a straight woman who views queer relationships through the exact lens of a heterosexual relationship.

It's a story whose entire premise balances on the author understanding the society and culture of the time it is set. Achilles and Patroclus's relationship is very much informed by the time and place it is set in. And yet Miller writes it entirely though a modern perspective and with modern morals and values. If you want a protagonist who's a pacifist and who approaches their sexuality through a modern western perspective, then DON'T write about infamous warriors from ancient Greece who are none of these things.

And my final grievance that infuriates me the most is Miller TEACHES ancient Greek. She of all people would HOPEFULLY know better. She is educated on this time and society, and so I have no patience for her anachronistic approach to the story. It will always read to me as a straight white woman's fantasy of a myth steeped in queerness, violence, and societal bonds unique to the Ancient Greeks.

#i lost the fight this did turn into a rant #Will I'm not going to tag you outright but I'm tagging you in my heart so you can rage with me #anons

66 notes · View notes

bots-and-cons · 10 months

Note

Yay they are open so how about decepticons dealing with a cybetronian teen who is very violent and has anger issues due to the war

Oh boy, this might be a bit toxic but I do love this concept because of the sort of toxic potential. These are just my honest thoughts about this kind of situation, and how each character would deal with it. Also not all the cons, because I always forget someone and then I don’t feel like adding when I realize it

•Megatron is taking full advantage of your volatile nature and violent tendencies

•He has put you in a lot of dangerous situations on purpose, because he trusts you’re strong/angry enough to win, no matter how badly you get hurt

•You’re a very frequent visitor at the med bay, because of your recklessness and tendency to go way too overboard when you fight

•Knockout has sort of tried to act like a therapist, even though he’s pretty bad at it

•He isn’t really good at dealing with his own emotions either, so he really isn’t much help with yours, even if he tries

•Knockout doesn’t really struggle with anger, but he does have a lot of issues with self loathing, even though he puts up a confident front

•Breakdown thinks you’re more of a funny case, you’re much smaller than him, so even if you’re angry, he has no reason to be intimidated by you

•If you ever get angry at him and come at him, he can just hold you by the helm as you swing your arms without reaching him

•Breakdown usually just laughs, which doesn’t really help with you being angry with him, if anything, it just fuels you

•You have enough self control not to use your blaster, besides, hitting something or someone is much more freeing

•Soundwave honestly doesn’t really pay attention to you, which you’re used to, so you don’t really care

•If you need to talk to him, he will answer you in some way, but if he deems it to be something you should know, he sort of ignores you, or motions you to use the computer yourself and find out

•You’ve also got a lot of guilt about your anger, and even thought a lot of it is directed outwards at others, there’s a ton you of anger you have towards yourself as well

•Starscream is of course also thinking how he can best use your rage for his own purposes

•He kind of uses you as his personal bodyguard, which is only really possible because you have a deal that he gives you certain freedoms on the Nemesis and in general

•Shockwave doesn’t really mind you, as long as you don’t get in his way, or break any of his experiments or anything

•Primus forbid if you get angry and break something important of his, he would probably throw you off the Nemesis or start experimenting on you

•He doesn’t get angry though, or at least he doesn’t show it at all, but he does think you deserve it

•There is no one on the Nemesis who would address the trauma you’d gone through or how bad you’re feeling, because literally none of the decepticons can even acknowledge their own issues

•It’s a very bad situation all around for you, because you’ve grown up with the constant violence, fear and anger and there’s no one who can help you deal with your issues

•I would say a lot of the decepticons struggle with a lot of anger, be it towards each other, the autobots, or themselves

•Pretty much the same for team Prime to be honest, but at least they have Ratchet to help them with their mental health

#transformers #tfp #transformers prime #decepticons #megatron #soundwave #starscream #shockwave #knockout #breakdown #tfp headcanons #reader insert #platonic transformers x reader

255 notes · View notes

lilbitdepressed27 · 2 months

Text

Tara Carpenter/Fem!Reader

Summary: Part 2 of my Supernatural AU

Warnings: none really

WC: 3.3k

Authors Note: so sorry for the wait y’all. Work has been kicking my butt lately. But now that I’ve got bit more free time I’ll try (key word here is try y’all) to update more on some of my other AU’s I got in my drafts. Well hope y’all enjoy and it’s not proofread so, sorry for any mistakes

Your head ached. You weren't sure what happened. You had been following some demons. They were talking about another seal being close by. You had been careful, like you always were. You had been close to discovering what the seal was when you had been knocked unconscious. The ache coming from your head was like nothing you've ever felt before.

"You took your time waking up."

You felt your body jolt up, looking for the source of the voice. Eyes widening when you saw who it was.

"Mindy?"

"Hey dingus, I missed you."

Ignoring the ache coming from your head you were quick to wrap Mindy into a hug. Her familiar laugh escaping her lips as she returned the hug just as tight. Then pulling away to punch her on the shoulder.

"Ow!"

"Where have you been?! We thought you were dead! Anika, she's hurting because of you!" The small relief you felt at seeing Mindy alive and well was now replaced with anger.

"I'm sorry. I didn't have a choice. They had to pull me away from Wayne's watch. They had to make sure I was on their side and not Wayne's. I had to do this to keep Anika safe. Keep you safe."

You were filled with confusion, "Them? Who are you talking about? Keep us safe from who?" Before Mindy could answer the door was pushed open. There stood the man that had trained you when you woke up as an angel.

"Hello Y/n." Dewey spoke in a gentle voice. A vocie you knew all so well. It had been the same voice, one that reminded you of a father trying comfort their daughter. One he had used on you when you first woke up. The fear and confusion that you had felt after death had been so profound. But Dewey had been the one to take you under his wing, quite literally.

"Dewey? Where-What's going on? Explain now."

"Y/n first understand that we had to gather the ones we knew for a fact were on board with what we were doing. There is a rebellion rising against our lord. Some angels siding with the rise of Lucifer. We believe that there are higher ups that are also part of the rise of Lucifer." Dewey looked at the younger angel. He had seen her grow into a loving and caring angel. An angel that brought so much joy, peace, love and what was most important in a situation like this, loyalty.

"It's also why you no longer have your halo. It is why you most likely have a killer headache. The halo only ever had one purpose. It serves as a tracker for the one you took orders from. Which in your case is Wayne." Dewey continued, he had his suspicions about Wayne. There was something about that man that had always put Dewey on edge.

"Wait what about Anika. She's under his order as well." Everything was being explained to you in what felt a fast pace. Making your headache worsen. But now you worried about Anika.

"Don't worry about Anika. I've been keeping a close eye on her. She'll be here soon." Mindy spoke from her spot, she was still sat at your side of the bed.

"There's also something else. Tara Carpenter is still the key to putting a stop to this war. But she's not the only one...you are as well. You both have to."

Tara felt like she was going crazy. Anika, the angel that told her you were missing had searched everywhere for you. It had been three days since she was informed that you were missing. She had also tried to find you but there was only so much she could do.

There had also been something else that had been bothering her. It was your case. You had died at the age of eighteen. Six years after she was forced to leave with her mother. She had tried to keep tabs on you but it had been hard. While she sat in a hotel she couldn't help but to hack into the files of the Woodsboro police department. Finding your file. Reading all the details of your file.

You had been walking alone from a late soccer practice. Your mom reporting you missing when you failed to return home. The police had gathered a search party to find you. Searching the woods that had always used to give you creeps. There were notes saying you could have gone into the woods at your own free will and just got lost. Tara knew you would never go any where near the woods, especially at night and alone. She remembered how scared you used to get when she would even slightly mention going into the woods.

The search team had searched for a total of four days. Before calling it quits. Closing the case after chasing up dead ends. The detective that had been the lead detective on the case had deemed you a runaway and had closed the case. The more she read the more she hated Detective Altieri. The stupid man had given up too quickly. It wasn't till 11 months later when they found your body. Beaten, bruised, broken bones, signs of-

...she couldn't bring herself to look at your autopsy. The images of your body, your dead body. But what she read had been enough for her to cry.

The ones who had murdered you, had never been found. They had gotten away. Reading that had angered her. Those assholes had gotten away with brutally killing you.

She'll find them. Find those murders and make them pay. Even if it's the last thing she does.

"Have you found anything?" Tara hadn't given Anika a chance to speak before she questioned the angel.

Anika felt like she was losing everyone. First Dewey, then Mindy her soul mate. Now you. She couldn't find you anywhere. It was like you were gone. Truly gone.

"No I-I can't find her. I don't even know where else to look. I've tried to use our halo link. But it's like the connection has been cut off." Anika slumped in the chair her hope dwindled as the days passed. The mere thought of you being truly gone was enough for her to…she wasn’t even sure.

"What? But how does an angel just disappear-"

"-Death. No one knows where an angel goes after dying as angel. But when the connection is severed it's just like this."

Dead? You couldn't be. The connection she had with you. She knew, you were not dead. She knew it in her heart. She in no way could explain this connection she had with you. Even as kids it had been strong. The way you both always gravitated towards each other. Always being able to find each other in a crowded room.

Looking back to the year you had gone missing. She remembered feeling so lost, confused, worried, in a way that she couldn’t explain. At the time she figured it was over her mom. Her mom had been off on a dangerous job living her alone. So she automatically thought the feeling was over her mother. Then to the day you died, it had been the worst day of her life. She remembered the feeling emptiness, like her heart had been carved out. She never would have thought it was over you.

"No she's not. I can't explain how I know that but she's not dead." Tara refused to believe you were gone again. Cause she didn’t feel that hallow feeling in her chest.

Anika looked at the younger Carpenter. She had done a lot of research on soulmates. With angels it was a common thing. But an angel and a human. It was rare. It almost never happened. She watched how connected you were with the shorter woman. A connection that you could not explain. As she got to know the woman that will save the human race, she knew that connection wasn't one sided. She has seen how your disappearance had truly affected Tara. The connection couldn't have happened in a span of time you met Tara. She knew as much. The connection had to have happened when you were alive. Before you became an angel.

Meaning Tara had have to known you before you died.

"Tara, did you know Y/n before she was killed?"

The question had caught Tara off guard. The only one that knew was Sam. "Yes. Before I had to leave woodsboro when I was thirteen."

"Tara do you-Anika. Tara Carpenter we finally meet."

A deep voice had cause the two woman to jump, the hunter taking out the gun she had hidden under her jacket in such quickness that Anika had been surprised. Her eyes looking over the older man. He looked harmless but she knew better.

"Dewey?"

Tara observed the way Anika clearly knew the man. Seeing as Anika didn't seem on guard she was reluctant to put the gun down.

He walked towards Anika, his hand on her shoulder giving it a small squeeze. "We have to talk. Ms.Carpenter, it's nice officially meet you. My name is Dewey an angel of the lord." The time had come. The need to pull all his forces together. The need to put an end to this madness before it got too far. The dawning fact that some angels(his fellow brothers and sisters) had turned their backs on their lord.

"Dewey do you know where Y/n is I can't-She's safe. Would you like to see her?"

"No shit. She's been-"

Tara would be lying if she said she wouldn't be punching that man the next time she saw him. How dare he use his angel magic to knock her out. And of all things they had taken her weapons.

"Hi Tara."

Your voice had spoken softly. A vocie she could finally remember. You were her Y/n. The girl who had defended her against a bully. The girl who would always walk her home. The same girl that would take your own jacket off to give to her on the cold days. The same girl that had climbed a tall tree to put a baby bird back in its nest. The same girl who had stolen her heart the moment she laid her eyes on you.

"Tara do you think we will be best friends forever?"

"Well obviously. Who else is going to save you from the scary monsters."

But she wasn't there to save you front the scary monsters. Like she had promised. The monsters had gotten to you and she didn't even know about it until it had been too late. With the guilt, anger, relief (that you were there in her presence safe and you didn't look to be harmed) that she felt in that very moment had been so overwhelming. The small chocked sob that escaped her lips was unavoidable as she basically threw herself into your arms.

You had not expected this type of reaction from the hunter. The clear distress had been clear from the moment your eyes connect with hers. To have her warm body against yours had you feeling, complete? Whole. Like a part had been missing and you were finally reuniting with that missing piece. You didn't know why Tara was acting like this but all you wanted to do know was comfort her.

Wrapping your arms around her and holding her closer. You could feel her own arms tightening around your waist. You weren't sure how long you were stood there with the short brunette in your arms but you were certainly not complaining.

"I'm sorry for not staying in contact with you. I'm sure you were worried, Anika told me you tired your best to find me. I would have contacted you the moment I could but I was not allowed. Dewey said it wasn't safe." With being informed about everything, you knew it was for the best. But you had not liked it.

"Safe from what? The demons? Lucifer? What's going on? Why is he being so secretive?" Tara couldn't bring herself from pulling away from you. She never really realized how much she had missed being in your arms. The security that you brought. Now she knows why she felt so safe with you. Not only because of your angelic presence but because she knew you. You were her best friend.

You had noticed that Tara made no move to leave your arms, so you stayed there. Wanting to comfort Tara as much as you could. "There are some angels that want Lucifer to rise. Dewey had gathered the most trust worthy angels. Don't worry Sam and Gale are here as well."

Tara knew she had to pull away from your embrace but she couldn't bring herself to do so. And from the way you were holding her it made her heart fill with such happiness that she had not felt such a long time.

"Do you really not remember anything from when you were alive?" She couldn't help but to ask the question. The ache in her heart grew as she watched as you scrunched your nose trying to think hard.

"Not really. With the halo no longer in place Mindy said that memories should start to flow back. Depending on the trauma, seeing as I was kidnapped and tortured my memories will probably take longer. They'll come when they come. Dewey said they have to come at their own pace. I don't know. Why?" You were told by Dewey how old memories from passed life will come and how strong they were when they did. Strong enough to cause pain. The pain apparently was unbearable for a few seconds before. The relief that settled in.

"No reason. Are you sure you're okay?" Tara looked you over. You stood taller, wings free. It had been the most relaxed she had seen you. The gentle smile you had on your face as you looked down at her. She brought her hand up to your face. Cupping your cheek, her thumb gently creasing your soft cheek. Heart beating a bit faster as how you leaned into her palm.

"I'm more than okay."

"I-Oh am I interrupting?"

You felt Tara jump as much as you did. Reluctantly stepping away from each other. You looked towards the door seeing Mindy leaning on the door frame with a teasing smirk.

"The name is Mindy. Nice to meet you Tara Carpenter. Hate to interrupt this cute moment between you. Dewey wants everyone in the gathering room. Said it's important."

You felt your cheeks warming as Tara showed no signs of embarrassment as she confidently took your hand in hers. You were in no way embarrassed but you had never had someone giving you so much attention. Let alone someone like Tara. But there was something in Tara's eyes, the way she was acting. Like something had happened in between the days you hadn't seen each other. But she seemed happier, and you weren't sure why.

"Okay everyone please listen up. This war, it just got a whole lot worse. With demon's succeeding in opening up the seals. They have gotten closer to completing in opening the 66 seals. But they have had some help. Unfortunately there are some angels who are helping the. We are here to make sure that they don't succeed. No matter the cause."

You had sat next to Tara, her hand surprisingly still in yours. She had refused or just not bothered to let your hand go. You liked the feeling of her hand in yours. The familiarity of her warm hand yours was causing you some weird déjà vu.

"-Y/n?"

Your eyes snapped away from your joined hands towards Dewey. Feeling Tara give your hand a squeeze. "I'm sorry what was that Dewey?"

"Y/n, I said you will have to be careful. I heard Wayne is not happy that you have gone missing. Not only does he have his angels looking for you, he also has some demons looking for you as well." Dewey had heard from one of his brothers that not only was Wayne enraged but he apparently had gone crazy looking for you. And Dewey knew Wayne well enough that if he found you, you would be grave danger. And if Wayne knew of your true purpose he would want to kill you.

Tara wouldn't let anyone lay finger on you, not if she could help it. She didn't care if that asshole Dwayne was an angel. She's been doing this line work long enough for her to know that every supernatural being has a weakness. A way to be killed.

She was not going to lose you. Not again.

You watched with a smile as Mindy and Anika stood hugging each other they simply couldn't get enough of each other. You were happy for them, happy hating they were finally together again. You knew how much Anika truly missed Mindy.

"Here."

You looked away from the couple to Tara. She had a small shy smile as she held out her hand. You weren't sure what caused this change in Tara but you were happy she seemed happier. You opened your palm a smile in return.

Tara couldn't hide her growing smile even if she tried. Your smile was the same. The excitement in your eyes, the same excitement you always showed when you received gifts. Her heart warming at the sight. Putting the same necklace you gave her when she was forced to leave you. A necklace that had two wings shaped as heart with a small quote 'I would find you in any lifetime'. How ironic.

"It's a something that's—I don't know figured you'd like it."

The moment you felt the cold silver on your palm you felt yourself tense.

"It's for you. I want you to know that I'll always find you. Okay? Whether it's a town away. A city. A state. I don't care. It's okay. We will see each other again. I promise."

Dewey wasn't kidding about that ache. You heard your own voice, granted it did sound younger. You saw a short blurry figure standing in front of you. The flash of memory had passed too quickly for you to even try to see anything else other than figure.

"Y/n are you okay?" Tara tried not to sound as hopeful. But seeing you tense like that as your face scrunched up in pain. It worried her.

"...Yea I'm okay. Just the slit ache, my memories. They are returning a lot faster than I thought. Although that memory didn't really give me anything. It was blurry. And it happened too fast."

Even if you still didn’t remember her. She couldn't have felt more hope. You were remembering. Slowly but surely. That was enough hope for her. She still plenty of your old stuff. Letters, poems, gifts. Pictures, but she'd save those for last.

She'll help you remember.

"But sir, they don't have their halos anymore. How will we track them?"

"Don't be so pathetic. You're forgetting something my dear son. Y/n is special not only did you kill her when she was human. But you also opened a new hell gate for than hunter, Tara to go down."

"But-"

"If the halo has been broken. Than Y/n will remember who she once was. She'll remember the pain she had felt. The torture, the fear, the helplessness." Wayne laughed as he looked out the window. Overlooking the forrest.

"She'll remember the abandonment. Her own god, leaving her for dead, it won't be long till she comes looking for us."

#tara carpenter x reader #scream #tara carpenter #fem!reader #Supernatural AU

42 notes · View notes

sapphire-weapon · 8 months

Text

I've been thinking about this for the past few days, and one of the things that really bothers me about the whole "age gap" discourse re: EagleOne is that, by buying into it, you automatically erase a huge part of Leon's character.

Leon might have been on the planet for 27 years, but he still has the maturity of a 21 year old.

After Raccoon City, Leon basically falls out of time and space. He's all but completely removed from society and has his growth as an adult completely stunted by the CIA.

It isn't as though he's spent the last six years gaining practical wisdom and real-world life experience that puts him at some sort of advantage over Ashley and makes any relationship between them cunningly manipulative on Leon's part.

Leon wasn't out dating and socializing and learning the ways of the world and growing alongside heartbreaks and disappointments and setbacks and victories and achievements. Leon has spent the last six years locked in a room with Jack fucking Krauser and getting the shit beat out of him -- that is, when he wasn't being sent off to active war zones.

Like -- do people even realize the actual depths of what Leon's training entailed? Krauser wasn't just a sparring partner teaching him about edged blade combat. Leon was actually literally tortured in the most literal dictionary definition of the word. He had to be, in case he was ever caught and tortured by the enemy -- he had to be trained on how to take it and not crack.

Leon not actually being in STRATCOM is actually really important to his character. He wasn't sitting in a war room digging through intel and pursuing active leads in an investigation against Umbrella. Prior to the formation of the DSO, he was a military combat unit -- the most elite one that the US government has ever produced. He is a weapon in every sense of the word. He's probably had to go through boot camp with both Navy SEALs and Army Green Berets and then some.

Basically, Leon was an experiment conducted by the US government to see if it was possible to create a soldier capable of wiping out entire military units on his own (which is, incidentally, probably the how and why behind his involvement in Remake's version of Operation Javier. He was chosen to be sent in after Krauser's unit was wiped out for a reason.). He probably wasn't the only one to have been put through this gauntlet during this experiment, but he was the only one who made it through to the other side. He's an anomaly; he's the exception that proves the rule.

None of that is conducive to fostering his growth as an adult or as a human being -- and that was exactly the point. The idea was probably to try to strip him of as much of his humanity as possible in order to create a weapon who would mindlessly follow orders and never question the hows or whys. This is also probably why his "softness" was a huge point of contention for Krauser, who knew exactly what the intentions for Leon actually were. After all, he knew Leon's potential better than anyone.

That's why Leon is so stoic and serious and almost joyless at the start of RE4make. He hasn't lived as a human being living among other human beings in six years; he's been forged into a weapon instead. The last time that he felt like and acted like and lived like a person was when he was 21. He hasn't grown past that point.

That's why his reaction to and treatment of Ada is so goddamn immature.

And it's also why it's such a big deal when Ashley gets that first smile out of him. When Ashley brings out the sides of Leon that we haven't seen since early-to-mid RE2make, she's returning pieces of his humanity to him.

The government had Leon convinced that he wasn't the same person anymore -- that the kind-hearted guy who went into law enforcement out of a genuine desire to help and protect people was dead -- because he's been in an echo chamber and having that idea reinforced to him over and over and over again. Ada saw right through it and knew that the old Leon was still alive in there. And Ashley brought him to the surface and gave him a second chance at life.

On paper, Leon and Ashley have a seven year age gap. In practice and reality, there's only one year separating them. Ashley is 20, and Leon is still only 21.

Anyone who crows about an age gap between Leon and Ashley is outing themselves as someone who doesn't understand Leon's character at all and can be safely and thoroughly ignored.

#resident evil 4 #leon kennedy #eagleone #meta analysis

77 notes · View notes

dorkynerd23 · 10 months

Text

I found this over on Twitter, apparently Michael Kovach (The Voice Of N)(Murder Drones) was on stream the other day recently and said that Uzi is clearly NOT A MINOR and Is an adult.

Honestly, The fact that the voice actors have to be dragged into these shipping wars and arguments from some fans in this fandom just annoys and frustrates me honestly. Can some of you antis and toxic shippers just stop fighting and doing this, the VA's shouldn't have to be dragged into these shipping wars some of you bring yourselves in, honestly some of these fans just make the fandom look worse and toxic..I know that's all fandoms and none are perfect and MD isn't the worst fandom I've seen and been in (it's mostly toxic over on Twitter, though) but my goodness, some of these toxic fans, especially the envy shippers (not saying all are bad and Nuzi shippers can be toxic too, I'm just talking about the majority of them) are just insane and take shipping wayyy too far!! Also, I've stated this before and I wanna say it here as well, shipping isn't everything and it's especially not worth getting into arguments, bullying + harassing people for, shipping isn't that important and people should stop making it a big deal. Now, there's no harm in it (just as long as it isn't problematic and such) as I participate in shipping myself! But, sometimes it goes way too far and gets extreme to the point it makes a fandom look horrible and toxic as hell and makes most fans look bad even though that's not the case, but all fandoms have bad apples sadly.

Let me clarify and say that, neither Envy or Nuzi are canon and and none of us are sure which one the show will be leaning towards and who'll be together at the end. Sure, the show is 100% leaning towards Nuzi as of now in canon, but anything can go afterall and we'll all just have to wait and see what happens. Also, we all have to remember, this is Liam's show, not ours and it's his choice for what he decides and wants to do with the characters and who should end up with who. These are HIS characters and his story and he can do whatever he wants, we can't change the canon and in the end only Liam can choose what he wants to do and what he thinks works for the story of MD.

So again, please stop saying that Nuzi is problematic and p*oship because IT'S NOT. There's nothing troubling and uncomfortable about the pairing, it's harmless just like all the other pairings for the show. Hell, N literally said that Uzi, him and V WERE KIDS!! They're around the same age!

Some of you toxic shippers really need to stop doing this, stop turning stuff around + saying certain headcanons to fit your favorite ship and putting others down to fullfill your egos. It's fine to not like a ship, but if you're going to the point of attacking and harassing other fans because they don't like your favorite pairing, then that's an issue and is totally uncalled for. Just let people like what they want and if you don't like any ship in the show and just don't like shipping in general then just scroll away and just don't interact with those people, simple as that!

And one more thing I've gotta add real quick, I know it's not everyone, but the amount of shipping wars and fighting I've seen go on in the MD community from fans is just saddening and ridiculous, and it just seems that some of these fans are only coming for the show for the shipping and romance of the show, even though that's not even part of the series, MD isn't even about romance. It seems that some of these fans don't actually care about the show and what's going on, they just care about the shipping aspects and that's just unfair to me. Murder Drones have so much more to offer, so much more to give, there's so much more to appreciate and focus on in the show than just ships.

Shipping shouldn't even be something you go into for a show, you should watch and go into a show for more than just that, that shouldn't be the only thing to look forward to. Shows like Murder Drones have so much more to them and so much more to offer and be loved, enjoyed and appreciated for! ♥️

#murder drones #liam vickers animation #glitch productions #small psa #vent kinda #my thoughts

120 notes · View notes

christinesficrecs · 1 year

Note

https://at.tumblr.com/fairytales-and-folklore/702836305045962752/91kmcytyo2me

Just saw that reblog. Now i HAVE to ask. Any recs come to mind?

Thank you @mtlyfe for making sure I see the important posts! ❤️

Lap Magnet by Prairie_Grass | 30.7K | Explicit

Five times Derek and Stiles didn’t notice how close they were (literally) and then a whole bunch of times when they did...

Hales Have People For That by LadyDrace | 4.5K | Mature

Some moron decides to capture the Hale pack. Big mistake. Really big.

I Love To Be The Underdog by CaptainnAustralia | 33.5K | Explicit

Five times Stiles got into an argument on Derek's behalf, and the one time he didn't have to.

He's Not Mine by Sunnee | 68.5K | Explicit

Derek comes home to find an abandoned werebaby on his front porch and Stiles volunteers to help him out. Surprisingly, that is just the beginning of his problems.

a lion among them by unpossible | 61.9K | Mature

He knew he’d handled it badly.

Not like he knew any other way to handle this kind of thing, Derek thought, only a little bitter.

But Derek had heard the word Emissary come out of Scott’s mouth, and had immediately vetoed it with extreme prejudice.

It was like he wanted Scott to set his jaw and ignore Derek’s input. Honestly.

But Stiles- Derek had thought that at the very least, Stiles would listen. That their relationship meant enough that Stiles would hear him out before deciding.

Derek had thought wrong.

Stiles plans are the worst (the best) by Dashar | 88.7K

Stiles world ended when his pack died. It didn’t exactly come as a surprise. He had been running with wolves for so long that within hunters and monsters it was just a matter of time. It was a surprise when the world ended too. And Stiles… Well, he had to do something about that.

stuck in reverse by crazyassmurdererwall (smartalli) | 65.6K | Explicit

Look, Derek is the worst. Everyone knows that. Their fearless leader is a total and complete failwolf.

Which means the rest of them? Are kind of the worst too. They’re a ramshackle, slap dashed, sorry excuse for a pack that’s about a half second away from getting one of them killed. And this is a problem, because Stiles would really like to survive high school. Thanks.

Still, nobody deserves what Derek has gone through. Nobody.

And it’s about time somebody told him that.

Foolish devouring things, build your castle in me by LunaCanisLupus_22 | 23.1K | Explicit

“I will marry you,” he declares. “But should any more harm come to my father or my people, I will raze the earth itself until I feel the lifeblood drain from your corpse and paint my skin with it.”

It is not an idle warning, but from the princeling it has none of the desired effect. Derek feels no fear, but in this instance at least diplomacy triumphed over the spilling of more blood. It is all the same to him anyway. But Regent Peter was most insistent they avoid a drawn-out, gruelling war.

“Then we have reached an accord.”

There's Monsters at Home by calrissian18 | 83.6K | Explicit

“How did you get past the wards?” Derek had put them up, with Peter’s grudging assistance, after the Alpha pack had made themselves at home a few times too many.

The guy pulled a face. “You mean the wards a five-year-old girl with the mental ability of a goldfish could deconstruct?” He blinked wide eyes at Derek. “Gee, I don’t know. It’s bound to go down as one of life’s great mysteries.”

Derek despised him.

Pack Up; Don't Stray by the_deep_magic | 55.2K | Explicit

Werewolves are an enslaved underclass, collared and tagged by human masters. Detective Stilinski’s on duty the night they bring in an untagged stray.

A Letter From Mom by StilesIsMySpiritAnimal | 32.9K | Explicit

After waking up at the age of 11 without any memories of his past Stiles spends eight years with his father in the tiny town of Shelter Cove, California. After his father's death he receives a notice from a storage facility in some town called Beacon Hills. Stiles is confused and thinks the manager made a mistake until he finds a letter that should have been for his 18th birthday that his dad never gave him. It's from his mother, who he has no memory of. Weirdly enough, her letter mentions Beacon Hills and some woman named Talia, who he's supposed to trust. Confused and angry at his father, Stiles sets out for Beacon Hills anxious and determined to find out what his dad had been hiding from him all these years.

Go Away, Scott by HelloWhyTheFuckAmIHere | 66.2K

After the incident at the warehouse, Stiles is fed up with Scott. He finds himself drawn into Derek’s pack and in the process, drawn to Derek himself.

With the Alpha Pack closing in, Derek needs to learn how to trust his pack and those around him. And who better to help him than Stiles?

Northern Blues by kaistrex (weishen) | 40.6K | Explicit

When the Hale pack transitions to a new Alpha, Stiles is thrilled to be assigned to Beacon Hills to try out as their new Emissary. He and his dad are immediately enamoured with the idyllic little town, fitting right in with the rest of the Hales – except for Derek. The new Alpha shows no signs of welcome, but it will be hard for him to stay stubborn in the face of his family’s encouragement and a sentient house that has plans for the two of them whether Derek likes it or not.

#asks #sterek fics #ficrecs #mtlyfe #bamf!stiles #emissary!stiles #bamf!stiles is my favorite stiles #❤️

227 notes · View notes

bookwyrminspiration · 3 months

Note

KOTLC question. What if Sophie has to make the ultimate decision and ends up killing someone (Vespera, fintan, Gisela, etc.) either to end the war, a moment of rage, or as a last ditch survival attempt. What do you think the fallout would be? How would you approach a story where that specific scenario ends with her getting arrested?

A fascinating premise. An elf who not only can commit violence, but who can kill? We've only seen that a few times before, and each in the Neverseen--Gethen with Cyrah/Forkle, Brant with Jolie, Fintan with Kenric, Gisela with Vespera--so Sophie killing creates this immediate blurring of the lines. Is she a good person? Was that the right thing to do? It very effectively highlights the series' message about how good and bad aren't simple, that the lines are blurred and you can switch sides at any time.

And the reactions from the people around her--there's been a very clear message from the Black Swan and associated that they don't want to sink to the Neverseen's level. They're going to do this, but they're going to do it right. Which doesn't include killing. Killing is still wrong, even if it gets you what you want.

So as much as they love Sophie, how do they look at her the same ever again? What are they supposed to want in her trial? Because her actions are ones they can't just ignore, but it's Sophie. Or is it Sophie? Do they still recognize her? This wasn't how it was supposed to be. What do they even say to her? I imagine the adults would think they failed her, not catching the signs she was turning into someone who thought this was okay.

And this doesn't even begin to touch on how Sophie's feeling throughout all this. She's arrested, she's put on trial, she's convicted but she literally can't let herself agree with it or she risks her sanity. She has to be right was she right? or she'll fall apart. And even so, all she's ever wanted was to be normal and fit in. Even if she saved the world with her kill(s), she sacrificed her deepest desire, because there is nothing normal about an elf who kills. Not even in her friend group of weirdos

Of course they're concerned and worried for her, glad she's alive and glad she saved whoever or whatever she did (a friend, the world), but they'd be scared, too. Of her. Because this shifts everything, even more so than the fire. And it reminds them again how different she is; they've made a nice group, but she's not like them and never will be. And they'd have to face this head on--which is only going to exacerbate Sophie's mental struggle seeing it happen, watching them all realize the difference between them. I think they'd want her to be released, but because they think she's given enough at this point and everything should be put behind them, not because they disagree with the verdict, if that makes sense. Like how Sophie's sentence was marked as already served at the end of book 1. Like yes that was not okay, but you've suffered enough.

In the event Sophie kills someone and is arrested, I'd really want to emphasize the emotional reactions of the people around her and that distance. Emotion and relationships are incredibly important to her and her character, and I think it'd be a very effective medium to paint this picture of doubt and fear and shock and the questions of morality. But there's so many ways to do it and so many facets, and none of them more correct than the others

#kotlc #kotlc character analysis #sophie foster #quil's queries #nonsie #we may be leading up to a sophie v gisela thing soon #and in which case #i'd be real curious to see how my ideas vs shannons would work out #because she went a very different direction than I anticipated with a few things #so i wonder if that'll happen again

20 notes · View notes

comicbookhyperfixationtime · 4 months

Text

An Important Aside

CW: Statutory Rape

So, the next issue I have to cover is #197, and it focuses on Kitty Pryde and Colossus. I've briefly mentioned my very strong thoughts on their relationship before, but I think I need to go into more detail about this topic, and I don't want it sandwiched between a bunch of bad jokes and philistine art opinions. When Kitty and Piotr's romance began, she was 14. He was 19. This is statutory assault.

This is definitely ephebophilia and I'm not sure but it may be considered pedophilia as well. Its really, really awful. But the narrative never treats it that way. They write Kitty as a child for sure, she acts in a very childish and immature manner throughout this romance. Its pretty clear Piotr's on a completely different maturity level than her. But he is never portrayed as the absolute monster he is for taking advantage of that. And its not that he doesn't know this is wrong, he angsts plenty about his feelings for Kitty. At one point, the two are in a precarious situation they're not sure they'll live through, and Kitty asks Piotr to have sex with her before they die. He refuses, because he knows she's too young and immature. He knows its wrong and he does it anyway. Which means that the writer and artist of that issue, Chris Claremont and John Byrne, would have to know it was wrong too.

None of the other X-men ever take issue with this. In fact, multiple other X-men encourage their relationship. This includes characters like Storm and Wolverine, Kitty's parental figures on the team. It also includes Professor X, who, may I remind you, has a doctorate in psychology (of course, I shouldn't be surprised Chuck is so blasé considering he had a hots for a teenage Jean Grey and only refrained from pursuing her because of his disability). Eventually, however, somebody finally did take issue with this disgusting situation; the Marvel higher ups.

Claremont was pressured by his bosses to break up the pair, so he did, in the most convoluted, comic book-y way possible; during the Secret Wars event, Colossus is separated from Kitty and meets and falls in love with an alien woman who dies tragically at the end of the event. When he returns to Earth he realizes he's still in mourning for her and has fallen out of love with Kitty. And you'd think that, that's it right? It sucks that they didn't break up because, like, you know, Piotr finally got his head out of his ass and realized he was dating a child, but at least we can move on! But no, we can't, because they reactions that the other X-men have, especially Wolverine are fucking appalling.

They're finally angry at Piotr. But not for starting a relationship with a literal child, no, they're angry at him for finally doing the right thing and ending that relationship. Wolverine especially goes off on him for breaking Kitty's heart. Again, Wolverine who is supposed to be Kitty's mentor and father figure.

I don't really know how to end this because I don't have any important insights aside from "this is fucked up, I hope you know this fucked up, fuck the people who made this." There's definitely a lot more to say about how Kitty Pryde and other teenage characters are sexualized in comics. There's a lot more to say about age-gap relationships in comics (this wasn't the first time a superhero committed statutory rape and wouldn't be the last). But I really don't want to say any of this. I'm not sure now if I want to write a full review of X-men #197 now, because I would rather not spend any more time on this. I might do a mini post about some of the specific panels or scenes I have opinions on.

This whole thing has really ruined 616 Colossus for me, and its tainted other versions too. But I want to make it clear, if he's still a character you like, that's ok. If (adult!) Kitty x Colossus is still one of your ships, that's ok! You can like problematic characters. In long running comic books especially, you can ignore problematic actions or personality traits of your favorite characters, God knows I do all the time. I just needed to get this off my chest.

#marvel comics #comic books #kitty pryde #colossus #piotr rasputin #rant post #serious post

25 notes · View notes

virtie333 · 4 months

Text

Day 30 - Life Day Damerey Celebration

Prompt: Life Day

Summary: Poe's thoughts of Life Day after personal loss

Notes: I wrote this the day after Christmas last year, the first Christmas without my mom, and it kind of sums up what the holiday was like for me that year. 2022 was by far the worst year of my life.

On the day before I posted this, I received a negative... well, not a review, but a comment... on one of my Modern AU stories.

It made me wonder how, when so many people are just trying to live their lives the best they can through horrors and depression and thoughts of suicide, why someone would take the time to hate on someone they don't even know. My writing and sharing of fanfiction has literally kept me going through all the above, so I want to thank those of you who take the time to say good things, nice things, and who understand exactly what I have been going through, because they have been there.

Thank you.

Warnings: Talk of the death of a loved one

AO3

Poe sat quietly by himself on the far side of the room, watching the many people that filled the space, but not seeing them.

He hadn’t wanted to come tonight, but Finn had begged him to, and he couldn’t deny the people he loved anything. Finn’s excuse was that it was the first Life Day since he and Rose had been married, and Poe supposed that was an okay thing to be happy about. Firsts were important. Your first Life Day married. Your first Life Day after a war. Your first Life Day after a child was born.

Your first Life Day since your father died.

Kes Dameron had passed away over ten standard months ago, and Poe had thought he was done grieving and mostly back to normal, but the holiday reminded him that normal would never be the same. He would never stop grieving. Not really. It would come and go, ebb and flow, but it would never end. As long as he loved his father, he would mourn his father.

Life Day had always been a big deal in the Dameron household. Even after his mother died, his father managed to keep the traditions they had all celebrated together the same. Only now did Poe realize how hard that must have been for his dad, and he knew the grieving man had only done it for Poe. Every year, Life Day was celebrated with traditional songs, foods, and gift giving. Even when Poe wasn’t home on Yavin IV, they still found time to connect and share with each other the events of the day. Only during the few years of the war had they not done this, if only because Poe didn’t dare contact his father; there was no way he was taking the chance that the First Order would find Kes and use him against Poe, who had been on their Most Wanted list for years.

But then the war had ended. Poe was able to go home, and he and his friends were able to celebrate Life Day together at the Dameron Homestead. Within two years, Poe was married, had become a prominent advisor for the New Republic’s Department of Defense, and had become a father. Life was perfect.

Until Kes informed Poe he had been diagnosed with lung cancer.

The doctors believed it was a result of Kes’ exposure to toxic gases used by the Empire during the Galactic Civil War. Though minimal, it had eventually caught up with him. Poe and his family took leave from their respective jobs and came to Yavin IV immediately. They were by Kes’ side when he died two weeks later.

Life had gone on. Slowly but surely, things became better. Poe had dealt with death many times. Two of his best friends, Muran and Snap, both died in their fighters right before his eyes. Commanders and those under his command, friends and former friends. The hardest death had been Leia’s, but the eminent attack from Palpatine’s fleet had prevented him from focusing too much on that loss until much later. He had loved them all in one way or another, but none had been his father.

Now it was Life Day, that special holiday that he and his father had always managed to share the same delight in. And now his father was gone.

He wasn’t mad at the people around him for celebrating. He wasn’t jealous of their joy. In reality, he simply felt nothing. No sorrow. No resentment. He was just… empty.

It was while the group in front of him started singing one of his favorite songs for Life Day, Gaudete, a familiar and beloved presence appeared next to him. He closed his eyes, letting the ancient High Galactic language play in his ears as the feeling of comfort and peace filled him. The Force. Sometimes he thought it was the only thing that had gotten him through the last few months.

He felt his wife, the bearer of that powerful Force energy, tuck her hand under his arm and lay her head on his shoulder. She he never strayed far from his side this past horrible year, despite the fact they both had obligations away from each other. Even when they were apart, if he started having a depressive episode, she would know, and come to him. She claimed she wasn’t using the Force to read his emotions, but that she could simply tell by his voice, his body language, the look in his eye even over a holocom. And when she was with him again, life became bearable once more.

Which told him that it wasn’t the Force that had kept him going.

It was Rey.

She never pushed him to talk, but she listened when he did. She never told him he should talk to a councilor, but she encouraged him when he chose to. She never pressured him to ‘just do it’ when he didn’t want to. She was his silent support, her strength and love palpable, even to a non-Jedi like him. He asked her once how she could still be there after so many months of his moodiness and disassociation. She reminded him that he had done the same for her during the months following Exegol. It was how she fell in love with him.

And as Poe felt her physical and mental warmth fill him, he realized with a strange certainty that he was falling in love with her, all over again.

He heard the familiar giggle of his daughter, and looked over to see Suralinda dancing to the music with the almost 2-year-old toddler in her arms. Little Leia had a huge smile on her face, her cheeks rosy red from the excitement of the evening. For the first time in days, Poe felt a real smile form on his lips, and a new determination in his heart.

He would grieve this first Life Day without his father, as was expected. But by next year, his little girl would start making memories of her own, and Poe was determined to make them as good as his own memories were.

He looked at his wife, letting is smile carry over to her. She smiled back, then picked up his hand and kissed the back of it. “Happy Life Day, Poe.”

“Happy Life Day, my love.”

#fanfiction #damerey #jedipilot #poe x rey #tw: death #life day #depression #comfort

19 notes · View notes