#(( because it very much differs based on which person belongs to which family line that's being married into

[rallamajoop]

Alex Winters on Marco, David, and David/Marco

So, there's this post by @silvermaplealder that I've had in my likes for ages, featuring some very nice fanart of Marko from The Lost Boys ‒ but also the quote "Can't forget how Alex Winter said David and Marko were BDSM partners" ‒ apparently based on an interview they no longer had a link to.

So I had to go look for the source for this, and I think I've found it ‒ it's an interview Alex Winters did with Spectrum Culture in 2017.

Here's the money quote in full, because damn, it's a hell of a statement:

To us, David [Sutherland’s character] was kind of like a pimp. What I had in my head about Marko’s relationship with David was he was basically my pimp and sometimes you’re having a sexual relationship with that person and sometimes you’re not. But, there is a very bonded master-slave kind of aspect to it and then there’s a lover aspect to it. Those undercurrents are all there. They weren’t something I was going to try and drive in front of the audience, but they were fun to play with.

So the way Alex Winters actually puts it isn't exactly 'BDSM partners' so much as 'he was basically my pimp', or 'master-slave'. Which does track well with how much David orders Marko around ('Marko, food,' get the bottle, let's go for a ride, etc). But even if the sexual element sounds pretty casual ("sometimes you’re having a sexual relationship with that person and sometimes you’re not") he's very open that he was playing the role with the assumption that Marko and David probably fucked.

Doesn't sound like it was something he and Keifer Sutherland (David) talked about explicitly, but he does hammer home that none of the adults on set were unaware of what a very homoerotic film they were making. I'd already seen some interviews where Alex Winters talks about how those aspects of the film resonated with him, coming from a family of dancers and a background in theatre, and how he'd based Marko on all the queer folks he'd met doing Broadway since his childhood, but this sure is a whole level more information beyond!

But I never can resist the urge to overanalyse my favourite canons, so yet more thoughts below.

Whatever David and Marko might have going, it doesn't seem to pose any obstacle to (eg) whatever David's up to with Star, or might have in mind for Michael. And Marko sure does not seem to mind being David's butt boy (in any sense of the word) ‒ like, he does not come across as obsequious or spineless, he's not hanging on David's every word, but he seems to be 100% into whatever's going on there. It's hard to read him as bothered by the idea he might be about to lose his position to Michael either: anyone David wants is in.

But even more interesting to me is framing David as a pimp, mostly for what that implies the way he treats Star. Because sure, she doesn't get to go run off with Michael on his bike without David rolling up to remind her of her place, but (with apologies to any David/Star shippers) I can't read him as genuinely attracted to or invested in her, or not beyond how useful she is as bait. Her job is to bring home wide-eyed young men, but if she gets any funny ideas about getting attached (maybe convincing one of them to "take her away from all this"?) ‒ well, David's here to remind her who she belongs to.

Tl;dr: where Star's concerned, David reads way more 'pimp' than 'boyfriend' to me. Maybe there was potential for something else, back before it became apparent she wasn't going to make her first kill without a fight ‒ but then, Marko's not in a wildly different place himself. In fact, the biggest difference between Star and Marko might be that he likes his place in the pecking order, and is never happier than when he's covered in blood.

For context, this all comes out of the interviewer asking outright if there was something going on between Marko and David (Is there this strange, almost homosexual relationship between your character and Kiefer Sutherland’s character? […] He always asks your character to do things for him.) The tear that runs down David's face when he's chasing Sam and the Frogs after Marco's death is brought up too, though I'm pretty sure I've read elsewhere that was a lucky accident with more to do with those vampire contact lenses being horrifically uncomfortable (leaving it in the finished film was no accident though). Either way, any reaction David might have had to Marko's death ends at the cave: during the big finale, it's Paul, not David, who goes after the Frog brothers, hollering "You killed Marko!" (David's only got eyes for Michael at that point.)

To what degree David's ever been a pimp/fuckbuddy/master to Paul and/or Dwayne may be up to your own imagination, since there's just not much to go on there. But the more I think about what we see of David and Marko, the more I'm struggling to think of any time David even directly addresses either of the other two. Even in the 'Michael wants to know what's going on' exchange, it's "what's going on, Marko?" that he starts with. Heck, he even seems to be holding up Marko as a major fringe-benefit of joining them ("That's what I love about this place, you ask, you get. You'll like it here, Michael.") Which is probably not worth reading too much into (the gist and the vibes are so much more important than anything specific David's actually saying), but still, jeez, what is the message there? Join the Lost Boys, plenty of Marko to go around? Or, just letting you know how I like it?

In the same article, Winters also talks about his ideas about Marko's background:

As an actor and a director, I subscribe to the theory that you create as much backstory as the character needs in terms of what is going to be on-screen. Otherwise, you’re playing details and subtleties that make no sense to the audience and that just becomes navel gazing. With a character like Marko, who only says a couple of lines in the entire movie and doesn’t really have much need for context, it wasn’t something I was going to spend an enormous amount of time on. He was just a homeless kid who had run away. Typical sort of ‘80s story, right? Someone from a crazy, conservative part of the country who ends up running away to a warmer climate where you can survive on the street. Very similar to how kids get picked up out at the bus station in Times Square.

And yeah, Marko as a young, queer runnaway who hitch-hiked across the country, maybe discovered a real thing for being ordered around while making some cash as a rent boy ‒ that definitely works. You can so easily picture him meeting the Lost Boys, realising they were everything his conservative folks would have hated, and jumping at the chance to join them. It's almost too obvious.

All this over a character who gets like two lines in the whole film, who will be remembered by most simply as 'the cute one' (as distinguished from The Loud One (Paul) and The Quiet One (Dwayne)) and whose biggest scene is arguably the one where he gets staked while unconscious. I do like the point Winters makes that there's no point in creating more backstory for a character than you'll ever get the chance to reflect in what makes it to screen. But this is a film where even 'the cute one' gets to throw himself gleefully into the massacre scene and come out basically glowing, and the amount of subtext they managed to pack into this guy is something wonderful.

I've seen a few different takes on Marco in fic, but I don't think I've ever seen anything that delves into his subbier side, or his apparent master/slave thing with David (or David's whole 'pimp' persona, come to think of it). And I get why that might be: if you're here to ship David with Michael or Star, it's easier to ignore those kind of complications. But when all the evidence and the actor's own intentions are laid out for you like this, damn, there is a lot there I'd love to see people play with.

[val-the-protoss-simp]

I ONCE AGAIN FORGOT ABOUT THIS DAMN BLOG

CURSE MY ADHD AAAAAA

ANYWAY

Part three of this ask, the Nerazim

Part 1/3 the Tal'darim

Part 2/3 the Khalai Part 3/3 the Nerazim <- you're here

Anar. The oldest of N&N babies. Nothing much to say about them aside from that they're a reclusive phase smith (or the Nerazim equivalent to one) They’re good at what they do and they know it, which can lead to them coming off as rather arrogant and full of themselves. They also have your average "oldest child syndrome" and tend to parent their siblings, who are adults and literally hundreds of years old in most cases, which once again is something that often makes them look patronising.

Elyon. A very underdeveloped character for now. I keep putting their writing off because I don't feel like I can portray their story adequately just yet. Yet. They're half Khalani, half Nerazim, the oopsie baby of Zhakul and Tali and because of this mixed heritage, they struggle to “decide” who they want to be in a world where the Nerazim and Khalai society haven't really integrated yet. In a world where not many mixed protoss exist just yet, they fel like they don't really belong in either society and grow up shy and reclusive because of this.

Their end game was to become an Alyssar. Because this little bean is, like, so hungry for knowledge. You know how humans are inherently hungry for money? Elyon’s like that, only with information. Anything is fair game, from knowledge about botany, philosophy, terran theater plays, the way plasma based engines work, molecular structure of a sandwich, etc. They don't necessarily want to do anything with it, like become a doctor or a politician or even a scholar, they just want to have it, to know, to understand. Eventually a few centuries down the line, they move their ass to Ehlna and join the other Alyssar. 

You could also argue it's a coping mechanism. Elyon will live for centuries, like all protoss, but their terran family won't. The grief that strikes them when Jake passes away (and Zhakul's visceral reaction to it) as well as the horror of seeing Harper get older and older in front of their eyes while they stay young, frightens them. So they occupy their brain with other things just so they don't have to think about this, and learning about crop rotation and quantum entanglement seems to be the thing!! 

Elyon also keeps their cords uncut despite frequently feeling the societal presure to do otherwise. This is mostly because it's the only way they get to feel close to one of their fathers, Talizun, who is a previously mangled zealot currently enlosed in the shell of a dragoon. They especially begin to rely on this bond after Jake's passing.

Nanzak. A very tall, very lanky middle-aged protoss lady. (middle-aged for THEIR standard. So she's like 600 years old) Very quiet, reserved, may come off as cold, unfriendly or even mean to others, but really she just likes her peace and personal space.

She's a performer and a dancer originating from a nomadic tribe deep within the midnight deserts of Shakuras. I really like the idea that a sense of family and tribes is very strong within certain Nerazim communities and Nanzak comes from one. The desert tribes have a different outlook on life, which then takes shape in their customs and culture. She'd be considered sort of an outsider in the more urban areas, mostly because she sticks to her tribe's customs and doesn't want to mitigate it whatsoever. She's proud of who she is, very secure in her place in life and society and if someone doesn't like it, that sounds like a them problem. 

She's absolutely and irrevocably in love with her short husband, who she has like seven kids with (something very usual with the the protoss, since most have like two to three offsprings in life IN TOTAL) Speaking of-

Narzul. As mentioned previously, he's Nanzak’s short husband and a complete opposite of her when it comes to personality. He's social, loud, kind of a joker, open and curious. Also quite clumsy compared to her (everyone is clumsy compared to her)

He's a very skilled medic who was travelling all over Shakuras in his youth to quench his thirst of curiosity and that's how they met. They've been together for like four centuries now, have seven kids and are absolutely that couple in public that is way too comfortable with PDA. You know the one. He also absolutely will start talking about his wife and how much he loves her and how cool and perfect she is every chance he gets and won't shut up for hours. Your fault for asking.

After Haven and Shakuras boot up their diplomacy programme, he eagerly joins as the protoss's designated medic. Mostly because he's very very curious about terran medical science and wanted an excuse to to eagerly study it. Now he can do that while there's also so many terrans running around that he can talk to about their whacky boddies?? It's like a dream come true! (he WILL ask about your bowel movements nearly every morning buckaroo you better get used to it) which eventually leads to him being curious about different aspects of terran culture as well.

He also has a role as a sort of an emotional anchor (???) during the time Zhakul is expecting Elyon. This is an unplanned baby that neither Zhakul or Jake feel like they're ready for and are lowkey (highkey) panicking about it, especially Jake, who doesn't feel like he could ever be an adequate father figure to anyone ever. Narzul helps midigate that in a way only a wise old man that's seen it all can do.

Ulzea. The one thing I can say about her is that she’s very pink in my head. And that’s about it fjdvikjbvf

Funny how she’s existed for about *checks watch* fourteen years and there’s barely anything to say about her (even her name, Ulzea, was recycled from a different character that I renamed last year) This is because she was never really a person to begin with. I make it no secret that this entire AU is based off of my frequent daydreaming from when I was a teenager trying to cope with an unfavourable family situation. The thing with daydreams is that they make for an excellent distraction and are a good tool for coming up with ideas, but they make terrible stories when they’re put on paper, namely because of their overly long, complex and often nonsensical narratives that are more aimed to the be self-gratifying to the daydreamer rather than be fully realised, balanced stories.

But I digress. Ulzea is a victim of this. I think the best way to describe her would be that she’s to Zhakul what Vorazun is to Artanis during the events of LotV, that being that she acts as an exposition dump whenever he needs to listen to some Nerazim lore. Ulzea is worse than Vorazun, given that Vorazun is still, you know, a character of her own with her own personality and growth and so on. Ulzea never had this.

The reason why I never talked about her is because she’s essentially been written out of Zhakul’s story because of this. She was more of a narrative device for me to arrange my headcons about the Nerazim rather than anything else, which I achieved by having her dumping this information onto Zhakul, who only just got to Shakuras after living with terrans for some sixteen years and had no idea how to be a protoss. She’s just no longer needed as a character because Zhakul learns of his heritage in a more organic way, but recently I’m thinking about bringing her back if not for any other reason that she’s pretty (also because Zhakul just. Needs more protoss friends who are close to his age)

Uszadar. One of Narzul and Nanzak’s several babies. He lives in the more rural parts of Shakuras, specifically around the crater where the Xel’laga Temple is situated, but due to his lifestyle tends to be mostly nomadic. 

I have a terrible habit of fixating on small features and details in media that regular people don't tend to give a shit about, which is also a case here. I love the kakarus. I have loved them since I first played Brood Wars at the ripe age of six. They were my favourite critter in the entire game and stayed as such to this day as well. I always envisioned them as, like, flying mounts for the protoss because kiddie me was obsessed with dragons, dragon riders and the 2002 Dinotopia miniseries that featured the skybax. So big flying lizard-thing mean alien ride too, yes? 

Anyway, the joys of having my own AU means I can do whatever I want, so I say the protoss ride kakarus. It's mostly something done in the more rural parts of Shakuras because the more urban areas just use modern technology for the transport of cargo, people and messages. At this point it's the equivalent to how us humans keep horses. Something that used to be widespread and important for the function of society is nowadays mostly a hobby. Uszadar is mostly on the practical side of things, still utilising kakarus for transport and to reach the more rural parts of Shakuras, as well as doing conservationist work for the species, preserving their natural environment as well as studying them both in the wild and in captivity. 

Meaning that, yes, he's a horse girl. 

Zeredar. Once again, this is one of Nanzak and Narzul’s babies. She was originally gonna die during the second invasion of Shakuras but then my friends convinced me to let her live (boo) so she continues to unleash herself on the rest of the world. I see her as someone with a very dry sense of humour, which often makes her come off as rude or mean. She’s also the kind of person who can keep an absolute deadpan expression while telling the most hilarious joke you have ever heard. She’s also very dramatic and sassy, something she gets from her mother.

Funnily enough, however, I also see her as a fairly cheerful person, similar to how her father is, despite what her sense of humour may suggest. It’s a bit harder to see this side of her, you have to get to know her better first, but under all that sass and sarcasm, she has a generally positive outlook on life and people, doing what she can to see the best in everyone and everything. She’s very proud of her work and is confident in it's quality, similar to her oldest sibling, and is also a very confident person overall.

The injury she suffered during the invasion doesn’t slow her down one bit and she continues to find beauty and happiness in her life regardless of it.

Zhakul’s mothers

Yeahhhhhhh…they don’t have names ifgvidhvvd

I’m pretty sure you can see a trend by now aaaaaaaaaa

They’re just as old as him, turning 14 years this year, but unlike him, they're are barely concepts. Which is fine in the case of this particular story, given that it’s not about them and they more or less exist so Zhakul can have certain aspects of his backstory set in place, like that he’s related to Vorazun through one of them, or that he eventually decides to walk in their footsteps as an elite member of the Matriarch’s personal Shadow Guard.

They were fully dedicated to their duties and very happy as only a couple, never intentionally trying for a baby. Which is partially the reason for why Zhakul is born when they’re fairly old, being in their early 700s. They both loved him very very much and would happily claim that the few years they got to spend with him before their untimely deaths were the happiest years in their long lives.

Both of them die a few months before the events of WoL. With the zerg invasion beginning anew, many protoss colonies were evacuated as a safety measure, including the one they were escorting. This was during the time the Dominion was kicking its Hybrid Program into overdrive and needed, um, material, to be able to build these guys from. I see you know where this is going. The ship on which the protoss were being evacuated on got seized by Dominion secret forces, resulting in a great loss of life, which included both of Zhakul’s mother. 

AND SPEAKING OF-

Zhakul!! My baby, my little innocent bean, precious cinnamon roll, too good for this world, too pure. Oh, how good it feels to torture him-

Um. Anyway.

This is the oldest OC I have. Period. He was conceptualised in summer 2010 when Wings of Liberty first came out and I played through the campaign for the first time. I fell in love with this game all over again, and came up with Zhakul as a way to organise my thoughts on it because I just could not stop thinking about it. Many things in the AU changed, he mostly remained the same. From the day I first imagined him up until now, he underwent very minor design changes and very small changes to his overall story. This is because he is perfect and has no flaw-

The only other character I can think of that I am more attached to other than him is Jake (who is also nearly as old as Zhakul) who he is essentially attached to the hip to and an integral part of his story, just like he is in Jake’s. They meet shortly after Zhakul is rescued by the Raiders from Castanar, where he was held captive and experimented on. The story of how the Raiders dumped him on Haven is a bit long and I think I already spoke of this on this blog anyway (???) He then integrates into terran society and becomes a part of Jake’s family, almost being like his adoptive brother but not really because he’s an alien being raised by humans. Still, he’s loved just as much by them.

He continues to suffer from terrible anxiety and rather intense ptsd episodes from when he was held captive and experimented on, which was something his terran family did their best to help him with, but there’s only so much therapy made for humans, by humans, can do to help an alien, not to mention when said alien struggles with trauma as heavily as Zhakul does. This eventually results in him severely hurting Jake in one of his episodes by slashing his chest open, after which he panics and runs away from Haven to Shakuras.

(How does he get to Shakuras? No idea. Its been a plothole for the past fourteen years.)

There he gets a bit of a culture shock because he’s been living with terrans for the past sixteen years or so and has no idea what it means to be protoss. Essentially, he’s a terran in protoss skin and I remember that one of my favourite things to think about was how confusing his learnt mannerisms would be to everyone else (like how protoss tilt their head instead of chuckling meanwhile us humans do it when we’re confused. I imagine this lead to quite a few SituationsTM)

A lot of stuff happens here. Zhakul originally only ran away for the sake of running away but eventually figured out the protoss will surely be able to offer better help than terrans? So he gets it into his head that he will go to whatever equivalent of therapy the Nerazim have and then come back to Haven, because more than anything he yearns to be with his family and with Jake. A lot of things happen here, namely events that include Dal and Tali, showing that him that he cannot deal with his issues by burying them deep inside him and pretending they’re not real, but rather by admitting to himself that they happened and learning to accept it and let go. 

A lot of Zhakul’s story is about trauma, coping with it and about healing from it. About learning that your past does not define you as a person and that it’s on you to decide who you are, not other people. The past cannot be erased, so why continuously dwell on it? Mistakes are made, relationships are broken and lost, but being forever attached to all of this and pondering how it could have been different is pointless. What you can do is learn from it, change your future, put effort into being the best version of yourself that you can be, for the sake of yourself and those around you.

He does eventually come back to Haven to make amends, but what happens is once again long and convoluted and more focused on Jake rather than him, because the gremlin human also needs his own character arc. They end up leading a pretty interesting life together, full of adventure and other various shenanigans, but writing about that would end in a much longer essay than this is already. Anyway, Zhakul is my baby and a personal favourite, the One That Started It All and my favourite punching bag.

[tamamita]

whats the difference between the groups of Muslims? what are they fighting about.

In short, there are three major denominations of Islam, and various sub-branches, but I won't go into the latter.

Sunni, literally standing for those who follow the traditions of the Prophet, are Muslims who believe that politically, the Prophet's companions, Abu Bakr, Umar and Uthman were successors of the prophet, and the ones to establish the Rashidun Caliphate. Sunni Muslims base most of their traditions on various companions of the Prophet. The concept of Adalat al-Sahaba maintains that any companion that was present during the Prophet's time is a reliable person in terms of how they narrate traditions, thus establishing a multitude of hadiths from them. Although Sunni Islam (as a separate branch) didn't exist at that time, it became the standardized version of Islam when the Shi'as and Khawarijs rebelled against the Umayyads and the Abbasids, seeing the birth of the four schools of Sunni Islamic jurisprudence to counter their theological principles.

Shi'a, literally partisans of Ali, hold that through traditions and scriptural basis, Ali, the brother in law to the Prophet had chosen him to be the leader of the Muslims upon the latter's death, as a result of various events that took place, the Prophet's household were treated unfairly and the repercussions of these events subsequently led to their martyrdom, which is an essential pillar of Shi'a Islam. Due to their rejection of Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and various other companions, they do not accept their chains of narrations in hadiths. Shi'as ultimately reject the concept of Adalat al-Sahaba, because traditions can not be accepted from unjust people. Most Shi'a Muslims (Twelver and Ismailis) put extreme emphasis on the Prophet's family and the line of Imamate through Ali and the Prophet's daughter, Fatimah, believing that only the Imams have the right to interpret the Qur'an in its esoteric and exoteric nature due to their infallibility, thus giving them absolute authority over the Muslims. Ali's tenure as the caliph saw much turmoil and ultimately led to his martyrdom. The subsequent death of Ali marked the end of the Rasidhun caliphate and transitioned into a monarchy with many of the Shi'as experiencing centuries of oppression.

Ibadism, a branch of Islam stemming from an extremist group called the Khawarij, they are a group of Muslims who did not agree with Ali's agreement to engage in arbitration with an opposing force that waged war against him over the caliphate. This led to a group of Muslims in Ali's army to defect, believing that judgment belongs to God alone, thus separating themselves from the rest of the Muslims. This group is known for their extremist approach and theology of Islam, but was quickly surpressed as they harassed innocent Muslims. The only remnants of the Khawarijs are the Ibadis and are relatively peaceful, albeit with some strict religious beliefs. They have their own collection of hadiths, but much of it is very close to the Sunnis corpus of traditions. They make up the majority of Muslims in Oman.

[atlasdoe]

so so curious as to why you dislike dora being a rosier? sorry i’m just rlly nosy and wanna know <3

HI! please never be sorry for being nosy omg i love it when people ask me questions about headcannons!!

There are many reasons why I don't like Pandora being a Rosier but the main one is that there isn't much wiggle room with it

When I first joined this fandom my hc for Pandora was that her maiden name was Jenkins because in the first fic i read that was her name (and she had a younger sister who will always remain one of my favourite characters ever) At that time not many people cared about Pandora, this was before people started headcannoning her to be friends with Regulus and the Slytherin Skittles were a thing

When the discussion of Pandoras maiden name began I couldn't really get on board with what people were suggesting, mostly because a lot of the names were names that belonged to characters we already knew, like Rosier, Lestrange, Malfoy, Ollivander i even saw a few Pandora Lupin headcanons. I didn't like having her be related to a character we already knew I kinda just wanted to see her as her own person without any resemblance to other characters (I thought the same about Alice too for a while)

I've since changed my mind on that and my main headcannon for Pandora is that she's an Ollivander. I think it suites her well and that having someone who experiments with spells be the daughter/granddaughter of a wandmaker makes sense and gives potential for Pandora to have an interesting backstory

But the death eater families I can just never get behind. It automatically gives her a storyline which is already canonically other characters. The whole growing up in a purist family and then leaving is kinda the Blacks thing and part of me also likes the idea that the Blacks are just pure chaos and can't keep their kids in line when everyone else is acting perfect

It is also very much because I don't like the idea of Pandora being the sister of Lucius or Rodophus and Rabastan and Evan

The Pandora and Evan being siblings hc I especially dislike, partly because I just don't like what it does to both of their characters. Evan in my mind will always be a complete dickhead who was always a purist and always a wanker and I cant see that when Pandora is standing by him as his sister. I see them as friends but in my hcs Pandora isn't just friends with the Slytherins but also with Edgar, Amelia, Benjy, Caradoc, Fabian and Gideon from her own year and because of that she's able to easily cut Barty, Evan and Regulus off the moment they start showing signs of acting on their prejudice, unlike Dorcas who didn't have any other friends and was really holding and hoping to the idea that they would change their minds

On top of that I can't see anything that we get from the Rosier twins that we don't get from any other siblings in the era. Like we already have the Black brother, Black sisters, Bones twins, Prewett siblings, Carrow twins, Lestrange brothers and Evans sisters who all have elements that have been ignored and given to the Rosiers. From ending up on different sides of the war, to being separated by magic, to one of them dying during the war and leaving the other, to even being low-key incest. There's nothing new that they bring to the table.

(and that's only from the cannon siblings. We still have so many characters that we know had siblings like Marlene or characters with the same last name who could be siblings like Hestia and Gwenog Jones and Olivia and Toby Gleves)

And I hateeeee what this does to Pandoras character it reminds me of how Marlenes character was created. Instead of Pandora being someone based on what we know about her in cannon (which isn't much but still) she's been crafted to best suite the men that we've put around her (Evan, Barty and Regulus) Like we don't even talk about her and Xeno anymore who she literally marrys and has a kid with

Also I cannot see Pandora as being younger then The Marauders. In my hcs Pandora is a year above the Marauders while Evan and Dorcas are in the same year as them and Barty and Regulus are in the year below, I simply cannot see it any other way

Yeah there aren't many headcanons that would stop me from reading a fic but this is definitely one of them. There is nobody I hate more then Pandora Rosier

Thank you so much for asking and please never hesitate to ask anything else :)

[mariacallous]

Beneath an intricate stained-glass window, I am sitting next to pastor Jeff Wilder, talking about lonely men. The clergyman is the first to say he looks a little different from your average Protestant preacher; his thick beard and arm tattoos might not instantly place him leading a flock here. But his assessment of the presidential race is insightful and nuanced – not least because his church is in Middletown, Ohio, where Trump’s vice-presidential pick JD Vance grew up.

Middletown, a small city in the rust belt, was thrust into national prominence after Vance, by then a Silicon Valley-based venture capitalist, published his memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, in 2016. The book would pave the way for his move into politics.

Vance is of course a polarising figure in this election, in part owing to misogynist comments targeting “childless cat ladies”. But pastor Wilder takes exception to something else, too.

“The Republican party right now is doing a really wonderful job of faking relationships,” he says. The emails he receives from the Trump campaign – which he signed up to for research purposes – often start with exuberant personal messages such as “I need you” or “I can’t do it without you”. “It’s ingenuine,” Wilder says, recognising that some in his congregation – which splits about 50/50 on party lines – have “fallen into the trap … Men’s health is something we overlook in America. Men want to be part of something – to feel like they belong.”

Increasingly, this election looks set to be defined by an entrenched gender divide. This is particularly evident, according to recent polls, among white men without a college degree, who favour Trump by a margin of 70%.

Naturally, what the pastor describes forms only a fragment of the reason white men are attracted to Trump. Some in the cable news commentariat chastise the Harris campaign for failing to connect with men, overlooking the reality that swathes of them continue to carry so much gender and racial bias that connection is impossible. Throughout this election I have heard many voters describe the vice-president of the United States with vicious misogyny, often in line with remarks Trump himself has made.

But America’s lurch into a loneliness epidemic is long established. It’s the subject of Robert Putnam’s seminal work Bowling Alone, which is set in towns not too far from here and observes the decline of the civic organisations, from bowling leagues to trade unions, that buttress a strong democracy and social fabric. Last year Joe Biden’s surgeon general categorised loneliness as a public health crisis. Vance acknowledges it in his book: loneliness, he writes, has led to “a peculiar crisis of masculinity in which some of the very traits that our culture inculcates make it difficult to succeed in a changing world.”

After my visit to Wilder, I drive towards Ohio’s border with Kentucky, along streets lined with large maple trees turning a magnificent orange as autumn sets in, for a canvassing event with a group of “Rising Republicans”. They tell me (to my relief) that they define youth as between the ages of 18 and 40, meaning they can proudly declare that Vance himself could still belong.

The gender divide that defines this election is even more pronounced among younger voters, according to recent polls. Some 67% of young women support Harris, compared with 28% who support Trump. And 58% of young men favour Trump, against 37% for Harris.

Before we set out to walk the streets, I ask the group if they think the very definition of masculinity is on the ballot this year, too. Some nod in agreement. “The conservative’s definition of masculinity is hard-working blue-collar man, who works hard to support his family, his wife, his livelihood, his home and his community,” says one young man. “Those on the left, I don’t think they know what a man is.”

I ask the group’s president, Grant Bagshaw, whether he has concerns about the dozens of women who have accused Trump of sexual assault, and of the jury decision last year to hold the former president liable for sexual abuse. “It’s an uncomfortable subject. I don’t know. I don’t think any of us know, so I won’t make a judgment on whether they are telling the truth or not,” he says, adding: “Republicans and most Americans in general … they just don’t believe the media most of the time.”

He has a point on the last part, but neglects to mention that distrust in legacy media has accelerated in the Trump era of misinformation. The Republican campaign this year has done much to engage with alternative rightwing media targeted at young men in particular, as a range of subcultures such as cryptocurrency and online gambling bend towards conservative values. A testament, perhaps, to how Americans are no longer just bowling alone, but posting alone.

I head back to Middletown for some Friday Night Lights – a high school football match where the city’s beloved “Middies” are facing off against their arch-rivals Hamilton Big Blue, from the neighbouring town (the Middies get thumped 42-7). Given where we are, I’m expecting to hear full-throated support for the Trump-Vance ticket and its turbocharged male identity politics.

But the reality is perhaps surprising. I sit in the bleachers – cheap open-air seats – with families, couples and young adults from across the region. Many do not even know that Vance grew up here, and their political persuasions are as mixed as their allegiances to the two teams. An older man stares down our camera and describes Donald Trump as “an idiot”. A younger man says “men are the main issue” behind the political failures in the country, but says he will not vote in November.

It’s a stark reminder that while the polls may be extremely close, nothing is a foregone conclusion in this election.

[yellow-faerie]

Okay in reference to your tags on the Bode post you reblogged from me: I kinda had a theory you were the anon! And I'm honestly very glad to find someone who feels the same way about him because I haven't seen many other people (other than my sister) who do!

If you don't mind me asking, I have two questions for you: what did you think of the rest of Survivor, and what sort of Star Wars fan fic do you write? I saw you mentioned it in your bio!

Lol I do think I went through a few of your posts before sending that ask - but yes, I do agree! Bode is a lot more complicated than I think a lot of people give him credit for; he's a father and a man haunted by a lot of loss which doesn't excuse his actions, but does explain them and make me feel a good deal of empathy to him. I think there's actually a line when they're in the ISB base where Cal calls him a traitor and Bode is like...no, I'm a father

Which is really not an excuse for killing people Bode (but is a very good explanation for how he got where he is)

You said it a lot more eloquently lol

(interestingly, Bode is a sort of parallel to Anakin in some ways - killing and betraying people they see as family/very close friends for the people they love, even though it changes them into something unrecognisable that the person they love can't quite reconcile with)

I do not mind questions at all!

For fanfic, because that's the shorter answer, I write pretty much anything - legends, Kotor, swtor (to some extent, I haven't played through enough of it yet to do proper fic), og, rebels, tcw, extended universe stuff (and even a bit of the sequels although that has to be veru handpicked lol)

I have interacted with so much of the SW universe to some extent and it's such a good sandbox that I will dabble in writing anything lol

(currently I'm doing a lot of Kotor stuff as I finished survivor and decided to fill the hole with yet another playthrough of my favourite unfinished trilogy <3)

As for Jedi Survivor, Imma put my thoughts under the cut because I have...a lot of them lol (there will be spoilers)

I love the graphics, so SO much

Each planet felt different and unique and reminded me how much I loved to play JFO

Also the worlds felt a lot bigger? I think it's because I didn't really do much side stuff, just kinda beelined the plot so a lot of the side quest stuff was just kinda there as fun background NPC chatter lkl

MERRICAL! MERRICAL! MERRICAL!

It's being survivors of two separate genocides by the same tyrannical government and even when you search elsewhere, you still belong at each others side

And it's the Merrin talking Cal down when he's about to kill Denvik and it's Merrin giving Cal space to work out if he wants a relationship or if that wouldn't work but letting him know her own intentions

That moment on Jedha where she calms him down from a nightmare but then takes her own comfort just by being near?

And it's Merrin in general lol my darlingest fave <3

Also! After that kiss on Jedha after everyone has gone back in, my brother said (as a joke) "and now they have sex!" And then it immediately cuts to morning

Iconic moment

Also on Jedha - spamels! Someone out there went desert creature - so, a camel - a camel in space - so a space camel - a spamel

Which just makes me think of the tinned meat which is a...really weird thing to be thinking about

Greez opened a canteena! Monk, I love him - also Mosey

In fact, all of Ramblers Reach, I really like that they gave you a main base that's so...connected to people in this game??

Also that garden, I could spend all day in that garden

And the High Republic stuff! I still think it's weird that everyone is treating it as if it's ancient history when it's two hundred years ago BUT I really love the aesthetic and the story

I tried getting into the high republic books a while back but only managed one before I had to return them to the library, but this game has made me really excited for the high republic game and has inspired me to try and read the books again

Shout-out to Dagan Gera for being sufficiently unhinged for me to like him, and Rayvis for giving off massive Kotor!Mandalorian vibes

And Bode was a very interesting twist villain as looking back in the game, you can see it almost

(also my older brother called him being a traitor twelve minutes after meeting him which was either incredibly perceptive or he saw it online and is thing to make me think he's incredibly perceptive - either way, he got ridiculously pleased when he was proved right which did not fit with the mood of Cordova's murder lol)

And Kata! It's definitely going to be some time before she fully trusts Cal etc. etc. HOWEVER, we now have a daughter and that is wonderful (I'm living for the found family)

And CERE!

I WAS EMOTIONALLY DEVASTATED IT'S LITERALLY THE SECOND TIME CAL HAS HAD TO CRADLE THE BODY OF HIS DEAD MASTER YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND HOW MUCH THIS HURTS ME

And it was the way Greez was so uncharacteristically ANGRY after Cere's death - and just- dhhfjebidnde

On a less devastating note - Cal, my dude, should have had to have had time to recover from both the slash wound from Dagan and the blaster shot from Bode which were both to the upper torso

Like...they caused enough damage in the fight to be a weakness but you can just walk it off apparently??

I don't think so

(I am going to write fic about this, probably)

Zee - I was so suspicious of Zee to begin with because she was so cheery but her voice kinda sounded like Nikola from the Magnus Archives and like-

Yeah I was fully expecting betrayal from Zee right up until we got back to Rambler's reach and I realised...she's just cheery, that's just her personality

I talked to her the bare minimum lol, I couldn't get creepy talking doll out of my head

That beginning sequence on Coruscant though?? That moment with the Jedi Temple where Cal realises what's happened and you can see the horror and bone deep resignation within him (and that's probably the first time that he properly starts wondering if he can do anything about the empire, after all there's that whole plot where people are like...settle down a bit)

I honestly wasn't that attached to the rest of Cal's crew who died - apart from Mags, literally JUSTICE FOR MAGS 2023, SHE DESERVED BETTER

There were so many little bits that made me genuinely laugh and feel things throughout the game and it felt a lot like Star Wars which is a big thing in its own right

Also Cordova being there threw me off but it was a nice surprise, if a bit weird lol as I was fairly convinced he was dead/in the unknown regions - but hell, I kinda understand it (even if us finding him in the last game might have made his appearance a bit more understandable)

I do have some things I'm not so happy with (some story choices in particular, and the way they presented Cal's slow descent to the dark side being the main ones) but I'm overall really happy with the game

It was the sequel that jfo deserved and it was it's own game in it's own right and I really enjoyed playing it - now I've finished the story, I'll probably stop doing such intense playing, but I do genuinely want to 100% complete it which says a lot, because I don't usually have the patience to do that

There's so much I could probably say that I can't think of now (and I don't think I've said anything about BD-1 which is a travesty of the highest proportions because my boy <3 I missed you <3 I'm so glad you're here and thriving <3) and I'm not really getting into the things I disliked because it would bring the post down (and also I need to be a bit more eloquent and a bit more awake for that one lol)

Anyway, thank you very much for the ask :D it made my evening, ngl, I love talking about star wars

[peerbear]

Cinematography Class - Exercise 1 - A Sense of Home

Am I Really Home Again?

Over the years I’ve lived in Australia, Germany and Brazil for different periods of time, but Scotland has always been a place to come back to. This is the place where I grew up. It is the place I have always called home. It is the place where I was born, but I don’t have any Scottish heritage. My parents are German and Brazilian. If you are born and grow up in a country where you are not originally from it gives you a different sense of belonging and idenitity. Because you belong to all of the cultures that you have grown up with, but at the same time you don’t belong to any of them. It can be lonely when you are unable to find comfort in a single one of them. But when you do it is very special. This sense of feelling at home and a stranger in my country and my identity is something I have always been aware of. It is always on my mind.

Home is a very emotional concept. For a long time I’ve said home is not the place but the people. Last semster I went to study abroad in Canada and since then I’ve come back to my definition of the word. Home is not a place or the people, there are always great people wherever you go. For me home is a personal feeling of comfort and belonging. I have also come to the conclusion that home can also be a lonely ‘metaphorical place’ or even state of mind and this like everything else is always subject to change. It is not something that you always share with other people, often it is something that you have to create or build on your own. Saying this right now feels dramatic as I have moved back into my family home for the time being while I wait for the flat Eva and I have lined up to hopefully move into soon. You would think this is home and that living in my parents flat, a place I have always called home my whole life would be my home still. But I don’t know that this is the case for me anymore. I adore my parents and they are wonderful to be around, but I don’t want to live in this flat anymore, that part of my life feels like its been done. I don’t feel that this is my home, it will always be a base to come back to, but the meaning of this place has changed for me. I found this so interesting as initially when I heard the brief to take photos/footage that demonstrate a sense of home, I thought I would revert to older thoughts and take photos of this space. I didnt take a single photo in the house because it just didn’t feel right.

This weekend I brought some of my close friends to my favourite beach for the first time, its called Tyninghame. I’ve been going there with my family since I can remember and its always been my favourite place. Whenever I go there I feel at ease and inspired. The ocean calms me, bodies of water ground me. For me I feel at home when I’m there in the nature. I feel like I belong. The photos I took were an exploration of me and my friends in this space where I feel at home. Here they are in greater detail:

Article from ASC:

Total Immersion for Avatar: The Way of Water

I chose this article because I am obsessed with water and I am keen to specialise in water cinematography for film. I know that is very specific, but it is something I have wanted to do since making Bodies of Water last year. As I said before water is a happy safe space for me and I feel it would be great to work in a place that offers me this kind of tranquility. Sadly, I believe this film doesn’t really offer that kind of tranquility that I am talking about. Although I have not yet seen it from what I have gathered its very much about destruction and unrest within this beautiful ocean world. The Avatar sequel is filmed by a different cinematographer to the first one, this time it is filmed by Russell Carpenter.

The article went into great detail describing lots of equipment that Carpenter used for the film, a lot of which I have not heard of. From what I gathered it mainly demonstrates how complex and difficult this film was to film. It was filmed with many cameras, mostly of two groups which were live action and 3D virtual cameras that needed to match up perfectly as moving images for the CGI animation to work.

For some of the water scenes they struggled a lot with reflections. The way Carpenter dealt with this was by using clear plastic beads layered together on top of the water to stop light from coming through this way there were no unwanted reflections. For me I would not want to hide reflections in water, I think its one of its many and most beautiful attributes that mesmerise me. I am aware that this is done to control as much of the lighting in the film as possible. However, I would find it hard to manipulate it this way. Carpenter himself says “The light should be a living and breathing expression of the life of Pandora.” From the stills I have seen he has achieved this.

Something to note is that although this film is highly technically skilled and moving the film industry forward with new technology, it is important to acknowledge that there are problems with the story - which culturally appropriates indegenious people and makes money off of a screening (eventually streaming) that is based on colonialism. This is something that the director of the film argues aganist, however, it is literally what happens in the film.

The film is supposed to be about belonging and finding where you fit in the world, which I find fitting, in spite of the plot, as this correlates to the home aspect in the first part of this exercise.

Message of the week: I have promised myself that I will be reading more this year and that I will actually contribute a lot more to my blog. This is something that in previous years I found very difficult, but while writing this post I have realised it is more fun and even therapeutic than I remember.

Stay tuned for some queer content.

[rantingoverbadfic]

'The last of my line' bullshit

I have read so many Harry Potter fics where the authors tromp around on the fact that he is the last of the Potters. The last of his family. The last of his line. And that is true, to the extent that we are making the assumption that the Potters are a patrilineal family and that wizards need one man and one woman to produce a child and the woman is expected to take on the mans name. All very boring, traditional and patriarchal assumptions, dare I even say, very muggle assumptions?

But we don't actually know whether it is just the unreliable narrator Harry who applies the metric of his very conservative muggle upbringing to all areas of the wizarding world where fact is unknown.

And in and of itself, being the last of the line doesn't mean all that much. Everyone of us who is still childless is the last of their line. I am the last of my line, because fifty isn't as far away as it once upon a time seemed and I have decided against having a kid. By that definition, I am the last of my line.

But since we are dealing with wizards - why is it even a thing that one of them needs to surrender their name upon marriage? Especially with purebloods, who are all so fucking proud of the fact that there is nary a muggleborn in their genealogy, and you would willingly give up your claim on half of your ancestry? Wouldn't you instead be proud of of the fact that your child is going to be able to proudly proclaim their belonging to two ancient lines? Though, since Draco is expected to inherit the Black title despite being a Malfoy, I suppose it is just the matter of the name that you lose, not the possibility of inheritance based on blood relation. But why do you need different sexes to have a child? They have magic, what about potions, what about rituals, what about transformation? Do you mean to tell me that in all that long time none of them managed to come with a different method of conceiving than penis and vagina? I am not even sure that wizards even have something like an in-vitro? Not even a method to recombine the DNA of more than two presumptive parents and simply using a surrogate to bring it to term?

But where it gets even more ridiculous, is those fics where Harry being the last of his line somehow means that the line of Gryffindor/Slytherin/Merlin/Arthur/what have you will go extinct if he doesn't have babies. Because he secretly is the long lost heir to those lines. Which is... absolute bullshit? Especially if he comes by that ancestry from his mothers side and your society really is of the boring patrilineal inheritance type, because in that case it already is extinct and doesn't depend on him having babies?

People don't seem to realize how few ancestors we actually have. Go back far enough, like thousand years, and if your family hasn't moved around a lot, like the majority of medieval societies (not everyone, I get that, but in general there wasn't a lot of migration over long distances, like, continent-spanning), that I can pretty much guarantee that everyone is related to everyone. The bigger problem would be to find who has the bigger claim, because at some point it is all just fractions. And considering that the wizards practice throwing their squib children into the muggle world and expecting others to take care of them, like some sort of person-shaped cuckoo, you have even more of a guarantee that there are umpteen Slytherin and Gryffindor heirs running around.

The only way you get to the extinction of a line is if Slytherin or Gryffindor died childless, which then has shit to do with Harry needing to have babies. To get a line extinct, it needs to be cut off very near the starting point or it is going to be unmanageble, and we are not even talking about all the bastards. Say, your ancestor X had one child, and that child had two children and they both died before age of ten - you better hope that the middle of the chain hasn't remarried or fucked around. At some point you need to have so many people dead before producing a child, that it would be completely ridiculous and unmanageble to get a line extinct, that nothing beyond a world-ending disaster would manage it. And if a line has persisted for thousand years for Harry to end up its last link? Yeah, he is definitely not the last of that line.

[msviscoml6]

FMP Conclusion

Sunday 7th April 2023

This blog post includes a comprehensive reflection of my final product.

My final major project at university is a time I will never forget. It was one of the hardest times of my life. My Grandmother, Brenda, and I were extremely close. She'd be the one I'd phone on my walk back from uni, telling her about my day even though she didn't have a clue what I was doing. Losing her was shocking but I'm so glad that I had the relationship that I did with her. I could blab on about how wonderful my Gran was all day because of how much I really did love her. So, basing my project on her and the family home that I lost with her, was one of the most perfect ways to grieve and express myself creatively.

From the start of this project, when I decided that I wanted to go down this route, I knew it needed to be just right. Collecting her belongings from the house made me realise that these objects were the only things I had left from her other than my memories. This sparked a creative fire inside of me, and I couldn't wait to get started experimenting.

The process of this project took endless turns. From photographs, printing, exposing, and photoshopping to mapping the items- I frankly do feel as if I tried every route I could. But it wasn't easy to come up with these experimentations. A lot of thought, reflection and emotional thinking went into all of my experimentations which I believe makes my experimentations just as strong as my final outcome. What I enjoy about the other elements I produced as a result of my project, is they're mine. The polyprint sheets I created out of my Granny's peals I think are a beautiful piece, and one I will frame and keep in my home in the future; adding another reason why this project means so much to me. There were complications in my projects, there were days where I was in a rut and did not know how to progress. But, I got out of them purely by experimenting and pushing. I think about what my project would have been if I hadn't thought of that one idea, or went down a completely different path.

I feel as if I worked well this term. Unlike other terms, I have been consistently motivated to continue moving forward. This could be down to the context of my project or my maturing as a designer. Managing and organising this project has been the best since I started uni. My Excel organisation document meant that I could see my daily to-do lists, map out my weeks and balance other projects on the side. The list also held me accountable for not finishing any work, meaning I was more motivated to keep pushing to get everything done that needed to be completed. Having a weekly roundup helped me reflect on how I had been working and what I could do better. My sketchbooks have been a great addition to my workflow. Ditching the lined notebooks to a blank page allowed me to stop being so particular about being neat and to just do it. These organisation and documentation changes will come with me as I leave university.

What was refreshing about this project was the amount of physicality there was. Apart from creating the house key, type and grid layouts for my cards and digital measurements, everything else I did was physical. As I've mentioned previously, I think this is extremely well suited to my project because of how much of a creative child I was, constantly getting my hands messy in art projects -way before I even comprehended what a computer was! My future is looking promising towards working for an agency, and in a digital era, I'm sure physical projects won't come up o often. Therefore, I'm so glad that my major project took such a physical approach.

My final outcome, on a personal level, I am very proud of. It is a representation and conclusion of the past few months, and I am so pleased to see it all come together. But, from a constructive perspective, some points need improving for it to be exhibited in the Grad Show. Such as the inside keys, for example, they could have done with tweaking to be cleaner. The vinyl on the outside of my box is very precise and modern, and I feel when you open the box, the inside box lid lets that feeling down. The vinyl isn't straight on my box, and to improve on this I intend to screenprint it in the future. My cards are a little hard to get out of my box, and some finger holes would have been a nice touch. Some of my prints, I worry, are too faded or not interesting enough to be as large as they are on A5. Using cyanotypes was a bit of a nightmare, but to improve in the future (and whist the proper sun is out!) I intend to redo my cyanotypes to make the prints more visually captivating. All of these things don't change the way I judge my project. I am still so satisfied with the outcome and I hope that I made my Grandparents feel proud of what I achieved.

This project is one I will always remember. Not only from an emotional level but from a perspective of how amazing my final term has been. I value the course and everybody I have met on it, so for this to be my last project is saddening. However, I am looking forward to the next stage of my life and I'm grateful for what Vis Com has taught me for me to be in this position.

[munchkinmarauder]

I love Magneto and I love his complicated and Interesting dynamic with the twins - when they are all treated equally as complex characters and given the same narrative weight not like they're doing now where it's all to service Magneto as a good guy to the detriment to the twins and Lorna.

Magneto is a complicated person but being abusive as their boss initially does not make things better and better wasn't only abusive as their boss (it adds an interesting layer of dramatic irony though) first because abuse is still abuse and that's wrong and secondly the twins were children and teenagers. He was their unofficial guardian so there are several layers of abuse of power here - he took these two homeless orphaned Romani kids, kept them in a place they were isolated and physically and emotionally abused and exploited them. Even before the reveal he felt a degree of ownership over them he didn't with his other minions and most significantly he only felt sorry for what he did to the twins when he found out they were his.

Even then he was abusive to the twins as their father as well. Remember we have 60 years of history we need to look at and unpack here. He felt they owed him as their father ("you must want to follow me I'm your father you must is what he tells them" and the way he announced their relationship is "this is MY granddaughter" it has subtle and different implications than saying I am your father. It's staking a clear claim and by picking up the newly born Luna - the twins hope for a better future it's a clear stake that those futures belong to him), if the twins went out of line he hit and abused them, yelled at them, he does the same with Lorna but not to the same extent. He also famously is the trigger for Pietro suggesting the creation of the HoM realty got his choice to let the X-Men murder Wanda and the trigger for no more mutants though murdering his son in an ego fueled rage.

This isn't even to mention the years he neglected and abandoned Lorna, used her as a battery and only expressed an interest in binding with her whenever the twins ceased to be an option. He treats her better than the twins but he's never been as possessive over her or as fascinated by her as he is the twins. It's an interesting idea to unpack as she's the one he designates his hair and puts the pressure on to maintain the HoM (again after she becomes his only option). It's ultimately to her benefit considering how he treats the twins but poor Lorna is his spare child (a lot of this is the writers fault for not giving a shit about Lorna mind you) her mother isn't Magda the love of his life.

Even in today's comics with the twins fighting because of the letter he sent them and talking about his abuse it's clearly all there are trapped in this trauma bonded cycle. It works much better when they are blood related than the stupid chosen family nonsense which pretends Magneto can and had done no wrong. Whatever said and done Magneto is the parent and ultimately bears the most responsibility for the state of his family. It is also very noticeable to me that Magneto does not mention Pietro at all in his wall of victims in RoM, he mentions random characters but not the fact he murdered his son. Wanda mentions the letter was no apology for Magnetos murder and while it's not uncommon for a parent to never say sorry and admit fault I personally find it hard to believe Magneto never thinks about that moment at all or feels no guilt for it. Magneto is a character defined by a lot of guilt for things he could have done and things which happened to him that was out of his control.

The retcon making Magneto the twins father was very clever. The modern Magneto we have can be owed to this retcon as the backstory with Magda and Anya was created for this plot and woven in - Magnetos looks were based on Pietro and Magda's on Wanda. Being the twins father does bring him up and tragically brings the twins down - they were on very good places on their lives - heros, married, new parents and the reveal triggers traumas in them and causes them to make mistakes (not all of which are Magnetos fault to be fajr they are adults and this point and cant blame everything on him - both twins acknowledge they use him as a crutch for their bad behaviour to a degree) and go on a downward spiral that lead to HoM that they are only now recovering from. Magneto is never the less integral to this spiral - the twins bring him up and he drags him down, they all hurt each other, there is generational trauma for days. They're trapped in a perpetual cycle. It's all very tragic and so damn fascinating and you cannot ignore the abuse and generational trauma within it. The twins break the cycle in many ways with their own children but perpetuate it in others.

Now modern Magneto is a calmer character. He got his dream with Krakoa and he's reaching out to his daughters (if that little snippet from his Email to Wanda and Pietro in the Strange Academy series - which I loved- is true he was reaching out to Pietro at one point too) but it's noticeable that when Lorna does not actively support him on something he attacks her and says she has no personality. Magneto loves his children I do not doubt that but he is such a traumatized and damaged man that he cannot truly love them the way he wants to or the way they need him too. He will always put his dream above them and now that Krakoa and his dream is gone I think we'll be seeing a return to the more classic dynamic.

Reminder of this, but Magneto wasn't abusive to the twins AS their father. He was being abusive to them in a BOSS/EMPLOYEE dynamic.

[royalreef]

(( Since its the dash topic right now:

Miranda has a strict regimen of birth control that she’s been placed on and will remain on until she’s been properly married and the time has come to have heirs. Until that point, she can’t go off of it, because it’s maintained by the Merkingdom and doing so before ordained by them could be seen as potentially questionable behavior that takes the rest of her rule into question.

This is primarily for the prevention of bastards — any royal that’s caught with a bastard child, had with anyone who they are not properly wedded to, is a massive black mark on their record. Other royals highly prize the sheer blackmail potential of the existence of a bastard and would absolutely use the, intentional or accidental, weakening of another noble family’s inheriting line to their full benefit. Royals are incredibly eager to stab each other in the back, and the existence of a bastard child is practically a target painted onto their back.

This is bad enough when it’s a bastard child between two royals, but it’s far worse when it’s a bastard child between a royal and a non-royal. The more powerful the royal’s station, the lesser the non-royal, and the stronger the blackmail material, and the stronger the potential repercussions of having made a bastard.

Because of this, if a royal has a bastard, chances are that they don’t know about it. If a royal does come across the information that they have a bastard child somewhere in the world, who potentially could claim inheritance of their family line but was not claimed by said family line at their birth, then their first and immediate move will be killing said child. There’s too much at risk to let them to live, and they’ll often murder the family and community of the bastard child as well, just to make sure that their tracks are fully covered and no one finds out about this. It’s too dangerous to let them live, and it’s too dangerous to let anyone know.

Because of this, if communities discover that one of the children within them is the bastard child of a royal, well...

While there are certainly communities and families that will happily welcome a child in, even a child who was born of a royal, and will swear themselves to secrecy and promise to keep them safe — they aren’t a majority, and it’s easy to see why. A bastard child puts them all at risk, implicating all of them in the political games that royals play, and the commonfolk seldom get out ahead in these games. There are other children too, other people, other lives put at risk, all because of this single action, and they all know what the wrath of a royal looks like. They all know how painful and brutal those deaths can be, and they know entire communities have been wholly wiped off the map because of this.

Oftentimes, if a community discovers one of their members has had a bastard child of a royal, they’ll turn that member and bastard child in. Whether to the Merkingdom, or to a competing royal who is all too eager for blackmail and willing to offer protection in turn, or to the royal parent themselves — it seldom ever works out as fully intended, but it’s still better than the alternative for most of the communities who do it.

Even children between two royals who are properly married to each other that aren’t fully planned out and arranged to be born ahead of their conception aren’t immune to this backlash either. The royals take the manner of inheritance and their family lines seriously, and implicating themselves as not taking their duties seriously and having full responsibility to hold onto their title is not only dangerous for what the consequences could be, but also dangerous for how other royals will react.

The hierarchy of royals within the Merkingdom shifts constantly, and holding onto what control they have is a deadly and tricky game.

[justyvettethings]

Random astro observations 🌸 #15

I'm not a professional astrologer so please don't take this personally

Capricorn Mercuries are always prepaired for EVERYTHING. Every. Single. Thing. They have plan B for plan A and plan C for plan B. Why? Because of their unconditional sense of responsibility and reliability.

The position of the Sun can be interpreted based on it's position in the different hemispheres of the chart. Keep in mind this is very brief and general explanation.

~ Sun in the left hemisphere (around the Ascendant) is considered to be really beneficial for leader position in life. Also the person can be self-centered or even egoistic if more planets are present on the left side of the chart. The lesson here is to learn to be more open to people and the environment.

~ Sun in the bottom hemisphere (around Imum coeli) indicates later succes in life or accomplishing the higher manifestation of the soul after the 40th birthday. When talking about a woman with Sun in this position it's very likely that she'll be forced to wait for succes and form a family and home on her own first. People with shadowed Sun (Sun in the bottom of the chart) have a high chance of developing extrasensory perception in some part of their life whether they like it or not. When I say shadowed Sun I mean the fact that when a planet is positioned in the bottom of the chart, it gets "in the dark" and it's kept there until the second part of life.

~ Sun in the right hemisphere (around the Descendant) belongs to the selfless individuals. They depend on their surroundings more compared to others. This can be double-edged sword, because they will have a lot of friends and social contacts, but they also may get tired from absorbing all this energy and lose themselves in the social environment. These people are also the people helpers, they'll never reject providing help to others, but they need to learn how to help themselves first.

~ Sun in the top hemisphere (around Medium coeli) is favorable placement, because it's double the brightess for the Sun (The Sun shines bright and the top of the chart makes it shine even brighter). People with this Sun will get successful early in life with the help of good aspects, but overall my experience tells me that most of the times Sun on the top will devop earlier and faster even without any major aspects or conjunctions. Now, there's a situation where the opposite effect may occur, namely the inert Sun. I've seen it two times in the chart of older people, who haven't accomplished anything major in life and just lived day-to-day without big ambition and energy, which is typical for this position. The explanation for this, in my opinion, is harshly aspected Sun or the "extreme brightness effect", because nothing too much of something is good. Double the power of something may be self-destructive.

As you may know, Mars got into the sign of Scorpio around the end of October and the beginning of November (I can't remember the exact date). So the effect of Mars on my body and health was definitely present. Firstly, you may get horny more often than normal (I know it sounds cliché but it's true) and secondly, inflammation processes may start to happen, especially in the reproductive system and the lungs, so be aware. Also something weird, but I need to share it with you guys, avoid getting mad during this transit (although it's natural to experience angry bursts during Mars in Scorpio), because it'll be more emotional than normal and you may start to "angry cry" during arguments.

With Venus Saturn aspects, there's almost 100% chance that the person will struggle to find a partner because of the unimaginable criteria, standards or expectations they may have for others. Another important thing about the aspects is that there needs to be a line between love life and monetary needs, because people tend to mesh these two things together. For men this means that they expect women to be attracted to their money, so they start to think they need to make a lot of money and only then women will like them. Women on the other hand tend to search for partners who can provide financially and that's their number one priority. In both cases the lesson is that finances should not be the most prominent factor in the romantic relationship.

[lordelmelloi2]

Reines uses her unsavory jokes to cope with her history of being abused/almost killed at the hands of mage society

While we’re on the topic of Reines’ being absorbed in the Clock Tower’s politics and it shaping her entire worldview, this joke (one of many incestuous jokes she makes) is another big view into the way that she copes with it. 

Reines, who from a young age has had literally no choice but to participate in the Clock Tower politics because of Kayneth’s death, has been enmeshed in these issues from the start. The conservative notion of magic circuit distribution and treating people like simply a womb or a sire in order to better magic circuit distribution is something she’s well aware of, even more so because female mages are regularly treated like simply wombs that will help create even greater mages further in time. It is not uncommon for young mages, teenagers and adults, to be in arranged marriages to ensure political gain or for greater magic circuit count. 

I’ve spoken about it before, but Reines believes that mages are supposed to behave in a way that’s more beneficial to political gain rather than try to walk the boundary of humanity and magus. 

What this means for her, who considers herself more mage than human, is that she will readily joke from a political point of view - but more specifically joke about incestuously eloping with Waver. 

Waver, who considers all mages to be fundamentally human, is absolutely disgusted by it. And it should be noted as well that Waver also routinely teaches mages to consider their humanity a bit more as a fundamental of his practice in Modern Magecraft instruction. Waver may identify himself as a mage, but he is well-known for trying to balance what it is to be “human” with being a “mage”. He is more concerned with being effective because those he teaches are secure in themselves as people, rather than suffering under mage society’s ideologies that require one to basically consider themselves second to their pursuit of the Root or anything else. 

The issue with Reines is this, though. Why does she keep specifically joking about incest with Waver? 

Well, for a girl whose life is entirely dictated by political workings in the Clock Tower, who has exactly one person in a position of authority in her life who doesn’t believe in said politics and yet considers himself a mage, he’s an easy target. But more importantly, she wants to prove something. 

For Reines, who was almost assassinated at a young age, the notion of being protected by others on the basis of her being a human ... was basically nonexistent. She is 15. There is nobody who is stretching themselves thin to try and rescue her or even comfort her from the torment of the political workings of the Clock Tower. Her life is constantly at risk. There is no other option for her, she believes, than to consider herself a mage. 

But Waver is different. Waver, who calls himself a mage, acts so completely un-mage-like that he’s labelled a heretic. Not only that, he doesn’t hold any of the political ideology that denotes a “true mage” at all, and on top of that, he actively rebels against it, teaching the opposite in his classes. 

Reines wants a justification for the suffering that she went through. 

If she can somehow suggest that Waver is Just Like The Other Mages, she will be right, and the suffering she endured as a young girl at the hands of the politics of the Clock Tower would be justified. It would mean she could skip the work of having to ask why she had to go through any of it in the first place. It means that she doesn’t have to weep or mourn or get angry that she was almost killed, that she’s regularly almost killed, and she doesn’t have to think about how fucked up the place that she’s forced to exist in is. Reines does not have an out from mage society. She is next in line to be a Lord. For her to give that up would mean throwing the El Melloi house into even further disarray, and it might truly disintegrate the family and destabilize them enough to let them be totally wiped out again. 

She has an immense burden on her shoulders and she’s coping with it by suggesting to the only person in her life who would say “this isn’t right, and they shouldn’t do this to you” that in actuality, the people who want this Are right, and that what happened to her was simply a matter of course. 

It is very common for traumatized people to normalize the abuse that happened to them as a coping mechanism. It’s easier to normalize it than to fight against it, sometimes, because fighting against it means processing a lot of pain and having to face that the world was cruel to you. 

Waver, to her, is a figure who is in her own words “blindingly bright”. He represents a future and an existence that says that the world is not naturally that cruel, and that kindness should be the base standard of how one acts and carries oneself. 

She does not actually want to be hurt by him. But she feels, at this time, that she has no other choice than to suggest that he, too, would hurt her. Would drag her deeper into the abyss that is the political ideology that mages have - especially of the Aristocratic faction, the right-wing faction that the El Melloi family belongs to, the faction that 10 years ago told Waver that a mage’s bloodline is everything and that nothing else matters. 

One day she might find out that she’s wrong, and one day she might learn that she's suffering, and that she didn’t deserve to go through what she went through as a child, as a teen, and what she might go through in the future. 

Quite frankly, she just needs the right support, is all. And to know that she’ll be protected in the future. That’s all she really wants. It’s a very simple wish. But it would mean a lot to her, who was not protected in the past, and has to fend for herself as well. It would do her good to have the idea that a mage isn’t just a bundle of circuits reinforced to her. And it would also do her good to know that she is allowed to act like a teen girl at times, having girl’s talks with others, talking about nonsense, having fun. Gray provides her with a bit of an outlet, which is good, but really, she needs much more than this. Ideally she should be outside of mage society as a whole. But I suppose there’s a lot more work that has to be done before she can hope to be freed from any of that. 

[nicolos]

considering the position in which war (2019) places kabir and khalid both, there's something very interesting in the construction of two opposing loyalties which cannot be synthesised - especially taking into consideration the sheer dramatic gayness involved

spoilers for the film below

from pretty much the start of the film, war establishes love for family and love for country as oppositional motivations. this is true for khalid and naina especially, but also kabir and, where applicable, saurabh.

khalid's entire backstory, including his very important disability, is based in the imagined idea that treason is in the blood - as well as his insistence that it isn't. khalid's father's betrayal was met with a betrayal within the family, which he also voices pretty directly: his mother sacrificed her husband for her country.

khalid says a number of times that he's his mother's blood, but objectively he's both: he runs after saurabh and doesn't return because his motivation is not just country, though it is obviously a big part of it - it's family. it's giving his mother justice and vindication, though both khalid and the film frame that vindication as based in being related to somebody who is loyal rather than, you know, having her husband or son be alive and well

naina, in contrast, isn't here for loyalty or glory. she's here because she wants her daughter to have a good life, which is what kabir is offering her. she's the one that makes the statement here: somebody who belongs to nobody can't be trusted. if kabir wants to be a martyr, he has no ties holding him in place, but it is ironically these ties that kill both naina and khalid, and a strange parallel opposite that keeps him alive.

naina's position is fascinating mainly because her presence in the operation is just for what it gives her. the film doesn't really shy away from making broad statements about why people defect or commit treason - saurabh says clearly enough that his own betrayal is monetary, and khalid also implies that they are lacking for money at home. when kabir offers naina money and the possibility to live with ruhi, what he's offering is objectively not that different from what saurabh, rizwan, feroze or anybody else are gaining from what they do, which is - money. security. whatever.

in contrast, there is not a lot to be gained in serving one's country. the film proves this time and again: naina and khalid both die rather senselessly - even if they achieve their goals after the fact i.e. giving ruhi a ""more comfortable"" life / making the rahman family recognised for the right thing - as does every "honest soldier" in the film, barring kabir. this is a pretty common line through action or spy or soldier films, the message that serving your country is an end unto itself, and that it gives you nothing but martyrdom: this is a recruitment tactic for honour seekers. this is nothing new

but in context of the dynamic war creates between kabir and khalid, this becomes something interesting. proposing to read that as the primary relationship of the film - with added context of kabir's previous primary relationship being with "his partner", who was killed by khalid's father. kabir states himself that his only relationship is to his country; nonetheless, his motivations through the film are deeply personal, from his initial rejection of khalid because of who his father was, to his obsession with ilyasi, even to the way he kills saurabh ("you don't deserve that face"). the film tries to make a case for his being motivated by naina's death, but the fact is that his treatment of naina doesn't really offer any reason to believe he was motivated by anything but her death being because he wasn't quick enough to figure it out

in establishing kabir as a man that cares only for his nation and his team, the film makes it more plausible for him to be experiencing a partnership with khalid (or his late partner) than it does with naina, putting him in a fundamentally isolationist position.

but naina's death creates another point of contrast for him. she says pretty clearly: she has children and he does not. reading kabir as a gay man, the position she occupies is one that he can never hold himself, because the loyalties of family are impossible for him in the very country he serves. it's exactly what he says at the end: he cannot achieve within the system what he achieves outside of it, because the system has no space for him to form these loyalties outside of the bounds of service

that's part of the flawed logic of war propaganda: the message has to be that there is nothing before the nation, but the very concept of nation, safety and security are deeply tied to personal notions of kinship and oneness. we're here to defend our good people, our families. a soldier with no family to defend cannot be an effective propaganda machine, which is why ruhi is essential to introduce as soon as we switch from 'khalid's' pov to kabir's. but even ruhi is a secondary motivation at best, all but forgotten in the scenes she isn't in - in the rest, his motivation is: his team ("my team is my family. im responsible for their safety").

whatever loyalties he does have are also tested early on, with him being asked to work with the son of the man who killed his partner (even if he later proves himself trustworthy), and again repeatedly as he becomes suspicious that somebody in his organisation is responsible for the death of his team . in a film and an envt where their very presence at his side is a threat to them - and their well-beings, barring khalid, are linked to a number of others' - kabir is constantly in a position of having to defend their lives against their loyalty or see them lose it because they hold the exact ideals he does. he cannot put their lives or well-being before the requirements of the mission or the system, because the system metonymically substitutes itself for its members: betraying the mission for the sake of the people carrying it out is betraying the people carrying it out.

kabir's success at the end is in fact hinged on his relation with his team - if not the homoerotic dynamic developed with khalid early on. his trust for khalid is because of their parallel dedication to the country, which in khalid's sake is split, but not without being in the same direction as kabir's. reading "faith for the country" as just "faith to the fellow soldier" and extending that to "faith to this guy specifically" (because, let's face it: kabir doesn't trust any of his superiors, or really anybody outside his direct teammates for the majority of the film), which is a fairly obvious and direct parallel to the emotional resonance of a relationship to make, kabir first comes to trust khalid because he sees the same dedication in khalid that he experiences himself. its practically gaydar

it is this exact thing that later saves his life, too. it's not really about observational abilities, the discovery of a very personal (and very immediately relevant to kabir!) backstory that led to an invisible disability. they might as well be having sex on screen. kabir recognises the consequences of treason (the prioritising of worldly goods, as linked to betrayals for the well-being of family) in khalid and remembers them: seeing their absence is what tips him off to khalid's replacement and saves his life in the end

pls do note that i don't like the metaphor of propagandistic love for nation as homosexuality - what i'm trying to emphasise is not that these things are the same or that the film is in any way really drawing a parallel. what i am discussing here is the nature of acceptable and unacceptable motivation and storytelling in a film that depends greatly on well-utilised tropes and concepts in order to pursue the story it's telling. i am just looking at the parallels and what story they tell when examined in context of that allegory, and particularly what it means from the perspective of the position that a system like this places its participants, even its most loyal ones, in

this becomes relevant in the end, too, with saurabh, when he graduates from pawn to whatever piece he wants to be. his goals are stated directly, though vague, and he makes an oblique reference to religion but it doesn't seem to hold much even within the film - though frankly it IS dangerous (and would be irresponsible if it weren't so fucking obvious). regardless, what he values primarily seems to be his own life and [monetary] well-being, and while he recognises the value of family, falsely IDing kabir's relationship with naina and ruhi that way, he doesn't seem to recognise the value of loyalty (or its allegorical significance)

this is why it actually blew me out of the water when he attempted to stab kabir in the eye, a fantastic callback to kabir shooting khalid's father in the eyes, which saurabh probably knows fuck all about too. the whole fight taking place in a church - the film is really one about personal betrayal lol, the judas parallels are ...unexpected but strong - the stabbing through the palms, the caving in of the support structures and the roof, are all great metaphors in that direction. and kabir's parting shot!!! "you're unworthy of this face. i won't let you die with it" girl?

by the end of the film at least, kabir is perfectly aware that he cannot operate within this system. i think it's why it's relevant to show aditi at her wedding, and the little joke about her eloping with kabir. he can't accept what any of them have, and it is because he can't accept this that he can never continue within the system. kabir's actions may have been justified from his [and the viewer's] end, but they are based on the sole justification of his word and happenstance proof - and, considering the actual positions of the people who he killed, become dangerously unreliable if there were to be any degree of higher level intervention. everyone he killed could be - and were - considered important cogs of the defensive or military infrastructure, and it is only kabir's highly concentrated loyalty only to the fellow that recognises them otherwise. this is because he's the main lead, yeah, and not without help, but imagine selling that story to anybody else?

to emphasise: nobody at any point in this film is surprised at the sheer number of betrayals that happen in this film. not once! because betrayal [for whichever reason] is at the core of the understanding of loyalty in this film. yeah, why wouldn't all these people turn against each other? the only one who is questioned for his motivations repeatedly is kabir - and the moment saurabh draws the line from him to naina and ruhi, that questioning also is at an end.

i think this is why kabir allows the reality to be sublimated into a story of khalid being martyred in the pursuit of his loyalty, a story which is as much about family - as seen by the emphasis on nafisa in that scene - as it is about anything else, and which allows the entire incident to be wrapped up with a neat little propagandistic bow, a story that's easy to sell, of a boy who was punished by his father's choices and makes the opposite ones for his mother [and mother india]

tl;dr war accidentally or on purpose or both becomes a story that has fuck all to do with the country - outside of the obvious propaganda elements - and everything to do with the juxtaposition of family, i.e. motivations that the system can accept, and the un-directed loyalty that cannot and does not accept any form of betrayal as anything but personal, because it cannot be redirected anywhere but at the fellow-soldier, homoerotically or otherwise, which can never be accepted by the system because it is too undiluted by acceptable irregularities such as betrayal

war actually does something very interesting in placing family and nation as counterpoints. hold on. gathering thoughts

[staygolddindjarin]

Grief

Chapter two: Rebellion

Din Djarin x Reader x Cassian Andor

Series Summary: Raised on Mandalore, born into a bloodline of warriors, no one ever expected for the daughter of a Clan leader to go rogue. Leaving the life of security and making the journey to fight in the war against the empire meant many things... giving up the way of the Mandalore, and giving up a solid future. A future that involves an arranged marriage to a foundling from another clan.

Chapter warnings: some brief angst, this ones pretty mellow ngl

Words: 3.3k

A/n: i was not expecting such a good response from the first chapter but bruh you guys are amazing- anyway here's part two of my brain's misery

Part 2/?

The trip from Mandalore to the planet of Dantooine was long, and still ongoing. We all took turns, watching to see if we were any closer. After each jump from hyperspace, the transport would stop at a space refueling tank, before slowly going onward toward the destination. We must have been traveling several systems across the galaxy. We had a few laughs, mainly while watching Gander try and steal Shyloh's food from his knapsack while he was sleeping. Most of the other time we all just sat in silence, up until this point.

"What do you think we're all going to do once we get to the rebel base?" Merc raised his voice slightly, barely capturing our attentions as we had all been dozing off, and Shyloh was taking watch at the view point.

"What do you mean?" I had asked, not quite sure of what he was getting at. I sat up straighter against the wall, showing my interest in the newfound conversation.

"What branch do you think you'll end up in?" He was in a daze as he spoke, almost unsure of his intentions of bringing it up. His dark eyes were nearly emotionless under his furrowed brow.

"I hadn't really thought about it. I would say maybe something like mechanics," I said, thinking of the best possible use of my talents. I'm sure there's plenty of mechanical help already assisting the rebels, but with the galactic empire growing it's forces by the day, they needed all the help they could get.

"What about flying?" Shyloh perked up from his seat at the window.

"What about it?" I asked, curious as to why he suddenly thought of the new topic.

"You could do it of you wanted to. Be a pilot, I mean. You have the skills," He told me, but I scoffed. He wasn't in any way shape or form was making an ounce of sense at all.

"Speeder control races are a bit different from piloting fighters against the imperial troops don't you think?" I laughed at the idea, but he rolled his eyes, persistent with his opinion.

"It's less different than you think it is. Also mind you, I never saw you lose a race," He objected, but I wasn't having any of it.

"That's because when I raced, my own credits were on the line," I joked, seeing what he would try and come up with next, only to be met with a cold hard stare, before an answer that would shake me to my core.

"Well, now the freedom of the galaxy is on the line."

My smile dropped from my face and I turned to face the other two, who were looking back at me. They didn't expect that answer either. Shyloh was well known to be a boy of few words, and only really spoke to his friends and family. He was a founding just like the rest of them, but he had been with ths clan longer, due to having been saved from a war infested home as a baby.

He could sometimes be very wise, even if he didn't think he was being so. We weren't sure what it was, but he had this sort of presense that was so powerful. We knew when he would walk in a room, or walk out of it. It's like the air would change. Much like it changed now, with his words rendering us all speechless.

The silence was uncomfortable, and I was the one who left it unresloved, so I spoke up in favor of my crewmates to not keep quiet any longer.

"Perhaps I shall see where I am needed first."

"Perhaps you shouldn't be so afraid to explore an option you would excel in," He again rendered me speechless, and I did not have anything else to say this time. I was young, but my mind was not. I could comprehend thoughts the same way that an adult could. I could handle things just as well and if not better than some, too. He was right. I was simply afraid.

"I think we're finally here," Shyloh said, turning back to look out of the view port again.

"Its about time," Gander stood up, slinging his knapsack over his shoulder and standing at the transport door waiting for it to slide up.

We all followed suit, but Shyloh stopped us and held up a warning finger to stay still.

"There's manding droids, we gotta sneak off carefully. They don't look like bulk but they could be armed," He suggested. We were not yet at the rebel base, meaning these were probably droids of the land, and belonged to whoever oversees the exports on this planet.

When the panel opened, we were all careful to first peek out of the transport. This planet was nothing at all like Mandalore, which was dry and hot. This planet was lush with plants. And the air was slightly humid. It was a very welcome contrast from where I spent most of my life.

We all sneakily bolted out of the transport, ducking down behind one of the cargo units placed outside. We saw an opening in what looked like some sort of forrest patch.

There was a chill in the air on this planet, even in the middle of the day. Mandalore only ever got colder at night, when the sun was down and the moons were shining.

"That was close." Merc mumbled as we began to turn around and head into the grasslands, trying to find the rebel base.

We made sure no one was behind us, and were careful to check if any droids had caught sight of us.

We all went to turn around, but as soon as I did, I collided with someone's chest, rather hard might I add, sending me to the ground on my bottom. I didn't even collide that hard with the person, it was just the shock that sent me backwards.

"Need a hand?" I looked up to see a man, a sly smirk on his face as he held his hand out towards me. I took it without question, heaving myself up from the grassy, and somewhat muddy ground beneath me.

"You must be our contact," Merc smiled, and the man nodded, turning and begining to lead us to a speader that was hovering nearby behind a large set of trees.

"We must be careful not to use names outside of the base. I would be more than happy to formally introduce myself once we reach our final destination," He chuckled. It was only now that I realized he had an accent, a thick one. Probably left over from his native tongue that spilled out his mouth when he spoke galactic basic.

I know that sometimes my accent slips in when i speak. I never had to worry about using Mando'a around my fellow crewmates. They were foundlings, and hadn't been raised to speak it. Shyloh was, but he prefered to use galactic basic anyways because he had forgotten so much of it.

We all boarded the speader, Gander and I sitting on the back, our legs hanging off as we held onto the side bars.

"This might be a bumpy ride for you two," The man said, looking at both of us before giving me a wink. I scrunched my face up, not sure how else to react to it. The man was definitely on the younger side, but I wasn't sure how he could possibly see an interest in me.

Maybe he did and I just didn't want him to. Maybe I was still hinged to the idea that I would go back to Mandalore someday and marry my betrothed. I was so young, and hadn't the slightest idea of what feelings I could possibly be harboring, if any at all.

I couldn't deny I found him appealing. Anyone would, at least any human with eyes that is.

His hair was dark, and so were his eyes. He had a bit of stubble along his jaw and above his lip. He was somewhat scruffy looking, but in a good way.

As the speeder went through the forresty stretch of pathway, I kept turning around to catch a glimpse of him. Each time I did I had to look away fast because Gander would give me weird stares.

I would play it off like I was simply taking in the view of the green planet around me, and he wouldn't seem to notice.

After a while, with quite a few twists and turns, and Gander and I nearly falling off the speeder twice, we arrived to our destination.

We all hopped out of the transport, following the man into a giant cargo port. As soon as I looked to my left I could see an X-wing fighter in all it's glory. I had never seen a real one before, just heard stories and viewed holograms.

"Alright. We have about twelve other recruits arriving on this base today, so you will all be attending orientation this evening. As for right now, you look beat, and should rest. PX-74 will assign you to your bunks," He said, gesturing to the droid before beginning to walk away with a nod, but I stopped him before he could take a step.

"Wait a minute... I believe I recall something about a formal introduction," I crossed my arms over my chest and shifted my weight, trying to give off the look of having as much confidence as I could muster. I was putting on a facade, possibly to make me seem more mature. I didn't know the real reason.

He smirked, raising an eyebrow as he scanned me up and down with his dark eyes.

"Cassian Andor," He smiled, then looking right back at me with questioning eyes. "And how about you... you got a name?"

"Y/n from clan Maldrix," I said, my confidence wavering a little when he looked at me the way that he did.

"She's a Mandalorian," Shyloh perked up, and I sent him a warning glare.

"Yeah, sixth generation," Merc added, his cocky smile pasted on his face for all to see and be annoyed by.

"A mandalorian? I've heard the stories but I haven't ever met one. Are you-?"

"I'm not," I cut him off before this got twisted into one big lie. "My mother and father are."

"Doesn't that make you one too?" Cassian furrowed his brow but his tone was somewhat joking and humorous.

"No, it does not," I wasn't harsh with the way my voice came out, but I was firm. Though I wasn't one of them, the mandalorians and all they stood for were very important to me.

"Mandalorian is not a race, it's a creed. Some of the best Mandalorians I ever had the pleasure of knowing didn't even have a bloodline from Mandalore. They were foundlings, like these three," I explained, laying out the facts so that there was no longer any confusion lingering, but now there was a tension that was thicker than the trees on this planet.

"Even still, she can fight just as good as any soldier taken the creed," Merc jumped in, trying to clear the air, and thankfully, it seemed to be working.

"She flies even better," Shyloh mentioned, and I swore I could kill him. He was just so pushy sometimes, even with his massive sense of wisdom.

"You fly?" This peaked Andor's interest, and immediately he seemed more engaged towards me.

"I'm not as good as they say I am," I admitted, but he shook his head.

"No, really... if you can fly we could really use you. We're putting together a team for an air raid that's set to happen about one month's time from now," He came up closer to me and stared me in the eye.

"I'm just a kid, I might really let you down," I joked, trying not to get too caught up in his eye contact. His eyes were much darker when you could see them closely.

"I tell you what, I can arrange for you to have time in the flight simulator after orientation. If we feel you would be an asset, we can add you to the strike team," He said, nodding along to his words. I understood that they might need backup, and if push came to shove, I could maneuver faster than any pilot back on Mandalore. I never lost a race, nor did I ever lose a bet.

"Okay."

I could tell I was blushing from the extra attention I was receiving. I wasn't so sure what about me was so enticing that I deserved it.

"I have to go now to pick up the other recruits from a drop station. I leave you in the capable hands of PX-74," He said, returning to his speeder and letting us be lead off into the base.

"There are only so many open bunks left. Two of you will share one, and the other two will be placed with bunk mates." The metalized voice of the PX unit was strong in our ears, and we all followed after him as we ventured into the long hallway at the end of the cargo port.

The droid stopped at a door about midway through the hall and opened it using the side panel on the wall, revealing a young man that seemed almost younger than me even.

"One of you will be staying here. Which will it be?" The droid asked, turning towards our small group.

"I'll take this one," Shyloh said, stepping forward into the bunk to meet his new roomate.

The boy looked a bit frightened at first, but because of Shyloh's powerful yet calming energy, he seemed to relax almost immediately.

He turned and smiled back at us, waving before the IG unit closed the door and kept us going.

He walked us down passed several more doors, maybe more than twenty, before he stopped at another one and opened it up.

Inside sat a young woman, her legs crossed as she sharpened a knife with a smirk on her face. She looked up and made eye contact with me first.

"I wondered how long it would be before they got someone else in here." Her voice was somewhat low and raspy, but it was kind of soothing in a way.

"One of you-" the IG unit began again, but I stopped him, stepping into the bunk with the girl inside.

"I'll take this one." I smiled at the two boys left before the door closed on my new bunk.

I moved to set my knapsack down on the bottom bunk, but my roomate stopped me.

"Bottom one's mine." She said, looking up from her sharpened knife again to inform me of the sleeping arrangements.

I instead threw my knapsack on the top bunk, trying to climb up into it, but failing miserably.

"You need a hand?" She chuckled, watching my lame attempts to swing my leg up high enough. The fact that there was no ladder should have tipped me off.

"I'll be okay, thanks," I laughed, keeping my attitude loose and positive, though this bunk bed was already causing unnecessary problems for me.

"If you say so," She chuckled again, seeing as I finally managed to haul myself up and onto the bed.

"First try," I joked, and she laughed like it was the funniest thing in the world. I think that we would be getting along, because no one ever laughed at my lame sense of humor.

I laid back, resting my arms behind my head and staring blankly at the ceiling.

"So, where are you from?" She piped up, not taking her eyes away from her previous knife. That thing must mean a lot to her.

"Mandalore," I let out, trying to get comfortable on this lumpy pad that was under my head.

"Actually?" She seemed surprised. Everyone had heard of the planet that the mandalorian tribes had resided upon, and usually they understood what kind of people the place would breed.

"Yeah. Left just in time. Tomorrow's my birthday," I shut my eyes continuing our converastion with one less sense. It didn't matter, though. I was still fully awake.

"What would you have had to do?" She pondered curiously, finally looking up towards the bunk in interest.

"Well, to put it short... tomorrow I would have had to swear my freedom away. No living being would ever be able to see my face again till the day I died," I laid it out plain and simple, and she seemed to understand.

"How old are you?" She asked, her trail of questions getting longer and longer.

"Sixteen tomorrow," I answered, feeling a bit more tired now that my eyes had been closed, and the lights in the bunk rooms were dim.

"You're just a baby," She scoffed. "How could they possibly expect you to make that choice so young?"

"It's just the way it's always been there. This is the way," I remembered. Those words used to be said to me nearly ten times a day, and now they only rung in my mind as a memory.

"That's insane. The people on your planet must be crazy to take an oath like that," She muttered.

"You would think so... the strangest part about it is that there are kids brought back as foundlings that take the creed without hesitation. They don't even belong to a bloodline, they just feel as though they have right to the creed as much as anyone else," I silently remembered Din for a moment. He was the bravest, strongest, most loyal Mandalorian I'd ever known. A foundling.

I began to get bitter at the thought of leaving him. He could have made things better for me if I had just given him a chance. I had to let my head get in the way. I needed to think about something else.

"What about you, huh? Where you from?" I asked, changing the subject as quickly and painlessly as possible.

"Alderaan. Born and raised," She said, getting up from the floor and dropping herself on the bottom bunk.

"You been a lot of places since then?" I asked, but she first let out a heavy sigh before speaking.

"Only too many to count," She said, settling herself on the bunk like I had done.

"Must be nice..." I muttered. Finally able to relax on this pathetic excuse for a bed pad. Of course I couldn't complain. I'm the one who chose the life of the rebellion, including their miserable bedding. "I've never been anywhere outside my home planet until now. I haven't even seen the entirety of my own planet."

"Most new comers are the same. They haven't been anywhere else, then they come here and its like we're moving non stop. Base to base, on just about every planet in this galaxy," She reassured. At least now I didn't feel so out of place.

"How long have you been stationed here?" I asked, unsure of how long I would get to adjust to things.

"A few months. It's likely we'll have to leave soon. There's rumors of the imperials knowing our location," She answered, rolling her eyes, thought I couldn't see from the top bunk.

"You're kidding," I scoffed. After just getting here, I might have to up and leave again. I'll have to learn to accept this new life, it's what I wanted.

"I wish I was, kid," She added.

"I have a name," I retorted back, not a fan of the nickname 'kid'. I waited for her to ask me what it was, but when she stayed silent I sighed. "It's Y/n."

"I'll call you what you are... now get some rest, they'll come pounding on that door in a few hours for orientation," She said, as though she somehow had grown to a habit of mothering me only five minutes after we met. I dropped the conversation and drifted off to sleep, my eyes were too heavy to keep open anymore anyway.

.

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Tags open

A/n: okay so like i wrote this a while before everything with gina carano happened and i do not in any way condone her whatsoever so let's pretend she's been recast already...

[logicalbookthief]

The thing with Nana in this chapter is that it falls into the same pattern the Todorokis did in the last one. Obviously, we know Shigaraki and Dabi will be saved by Deku and Shouto. It is the only satisfying conclusion to the story. Knowing this, it makes sense they struggle both externally and internally along the way, because a story without struggle wouldn’t be very interesting.

Externally, this struggle takes the form of the fights, the battles, the hero vs villains routine. Internally, this struggle should take the form of society vs the individual, heroism vs personal connections. And I think that’s why these last two chapters feel so dissonant. 

Both Nana and Endeavor dedicated their lives to being a hero over their own families. Even if the situations were wildly different and Nana had selfless motivations while Endeavor had abhorrent selfish ones, the results were the same. 

And since hero society as it is now is incredibly flawed, it doesn’t find anything wrong with the decision they made! That’s why Best Jeanist and Hawks rally behind Endeavor in spite of Dabi’s broadcast, why Gran Torino yells at Shigaraki for disgracing the memory of a woman he doesn’t even know. There’s this prevalent idea that because they were heroes whose actions benefitted society, this outweighs any action in their personal lives that negatively affected those closest to them.

Except that isn’t true and that’s the whole point!! The wounds of the Shimura and Todorokis families are still open and festering; and the more this pain is swept under the rug rather than addressed by society, the more Shigaraki and Dabi become intent on changing it, even at the cost of destroying it all. And they have no reason to value a society who venerated the heroes while ignoring their victims, rather than holding them accountable for the pain they caused.

The point is that you can’t protect society if you can’t protect your family, because they are part of that society, too. Just like you can’t be a hero if you’re willing to discard the individuals who are difficult to save, challenge those who don’t fit the “good” victim role, lock away those who are born dangerous or unlucky, etc. To quote Dragon from One Piece, because I love that manga and this quote so freaking much, “There can be no happiness in a world where the undesirables are thrown away.”

All of this to say that Deku and Shouto are faced with the same decision as their predecessors. For Deku and Nana, and even All Might, this is more a question of self-sacrifice: what are you willing to give in exchange for the world? Your life? Your relationship with your family? Your moral integrity? Of course the answer is you don’t self-sacrifice at all — the point of living in a society is to help each other, rely on other people, so that nobody is scapegoated and nobody becomes a symbol who must balance the needs of the world on their shoulders alone, while ignoring their own needs as a human being.

For Shouto and Endeavor, this is a question of what’s more important, your obligation as a hero or your obligation to your family? Are you willing to destroy your son/brother to prevent further harm to others? Of course there’s no way to achieve this, because in the process of destroying him, you hurt yourselves, your family, and the son/brother who was lashing out against being hurt in the first place. So you end up failing both your family and society.

We have the set-up for this internal struggle and we know what its conclusion should be. What isn’t making sense right now is that the struggle... Isn’t happening? Because the Todorokis and Nana have seemingly aligned with hero society’s view, which is that the villains must be stopped at any cost, without any consideration to their rights and needs as individuals who were deeply wronged.

And I know we may be jumping the gun, maybe Nana’s words are “just a test” to see what Deku will say, or we don’t have the full context yet, but... That doesn’t change the fact that it was written so Nana asks Deku whether he would be willing to kill her own grandson.

What irks me is that literally any of the other OFA users could’ve said this line and it would’ve worked. To have Nana say it indicates this may be the direction she’s trying to guide Deku towards.

Yes, she understands as a hero that AFO (and by extension the successor he’s groomed and manipulated) needs to be stopped. But she also should realize by now that her efforts to try to protect her family and the world ultimately failed. AFO targeted Tenko because he was related to Nana and he succeeded. All the pain she caused her son, all the hate Kotaro held for her and redirected onto himself and his children, all of it was for nothing. Society is still at risk, now more so than ever, and she doesn’t even have the consolation that her family is safe.

Based on her own experiences as a character, and her personal connection to Shigaraki, she’s poised to be someone advocating for Deku to save her grandson, and yet?

It makes even less sense for the Todorokis to align with hero society, because in Endeavor’s own words, they “don’t belong to the world” of heroes. They are intimately and singularly familiar with the pain he caused as a father and husband, not the good he did as hero, if you exclude his televised fight with the High-End nomu. Being as familiar with Endeavor’s abuse as they are and how much Touya suffered, they should be advocating the loudest to save him, and yet?

Clearly, we’ll have to see where this all goes, but it just seems like an... Odd narrative choice, to say the least. Instead of struggling, the protagonists are being told the same things by people whose views should be opposed, so when it inevitably doesn’t work out they’ll simply turn to the other side, rather then being torn between these two viewpoints and then forced to reconcile them.

And it is kind of frustrating that 300 chapters in and well after the My Villain Academia arc we still don’t have any characters who aren’t villains advocating for the villains. Not even their own families.