#...because you were much more likely to be maimed and/or die later of infection than die outright on the field from a bayonet wound

[words-writ-in-starlight]

where's the essay op

Okay so bayonets.  I don't know why I ever pretend that I want to talk about anything but military history and battlefield medicine.  I checked all my sources in the waiting room of a doctor's office so you're just going to have to trust me because they are Gone.  I’m pretty sure this can all be found on a few Wiki dives, though.

First of all, to recap, let me clarify a common misconception.  The triangular bayonet was NOT outlawed in the 1949 Geneva Convention, nor any future revisions—as it was originally a musket weapon, it was fading out of use by World War II and the subsequent Convention.  However, you'll notice that I opted to use to word "violates" rather than "were banned by," which is a fine semantical hair to split and, I suppose, debatable.  Most bayonets were not explicitly banned in the GC, in that there is not an article in the GC saying you can't use them.  However there IS an article in the GC, adopted from the earlier 1899 Hague Regulations, stating that it is prohibited to "employ weapons...of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering" (originally part of Article 23 of the HR, now Article 35 of the GC, expanded in 1977).  Personally, as someone who knows a lot about how a lot of weapons impact the human body, I think that is a more expansive statement than most people would expect, and should be treated accordingly.  Regrettably I do not work for the UN.

Point is, triangular blades specifically are known to cause wounds that are difficult to heal, highly prone to infection, and extremely likely to never fully recover, while also having a relatively low mortality rate.  This is because the axes of a triangular wound, which is shaped sort of like a Y, make it very hard to stitch closed, and very easy for any "twisting" of the blade to create a large hole with ragged edges that's functionally impossible to stitch closed.  As an added bonus, because of the way scar tissue forms, it's possible for one "line" of a triangular wound to pull open other parts of the puncture while the scar tissue forms and pulls on the skin.  Even by standards in the 1700s, triangular bayonet wounds were phenomenally likely to infect and consistently difficult to repair, and modern medicine has made only limited improvements on that situation.  As such, cases have been made that certain types of bayonet/triangular blades in general are therefore in violation of this article, despite not being explicitly banned.

(Side note: yes, the American military violates the GC on the regular.  The American police violate the GC.  I am excruciatingly aware.  The GC is interesting reading generally, but especially if you're an American and you ever feel like being appalled for a few hours.)

Anyway, with that covered again, let's actually talk about the development of triangular bayonets, which might've been out of use by the time of the GC but DEFINITELY violated that article in a big way for a good two centuries prior and are also a fascinating insight into the fact that humanity, as a whole, is really determined to do things in the dumbest way possible.

The first thing you have to understand about bayonets is that they were originally invented as a way to integrate pikes with guns, not knives or even swords.  When arquebuses and muskets were first invented, you were lucky to get a rate of fire around one round per minute, and you still had to protect your army while they were reloading their clunky black powder guns.  Therefore, most infantries between like...the invention of the gun and the late 1600s were comprised of soldiers equipped with muskets, and also soldiers equipped with pikes (a type of spear).  The idea of a bayonet was "what if we put a pike and a musket TOGETHER and then we could give everyone THAT and have way more guns in our army because we don't need pikemen anymore." Which makes sense when you think about it.

What makes less sense is that the initial effort at bayonets was something called a plug bayonet.  You'll never fucking guess what these geniuses (first record is Chinese infantry around-abouts 1600, popular use of plug bayonets recorded in Europe around the 1630s) figured out for their first try at a bayonet.  Here's a hint!  There's not a lot of places on a gun where you can "plug in" a sword. 

Obviously plug bayonets did not exactly catch on as a fantastic solution, because these guns were either a gun OR a short spear and neither was especially good at their jobs.  A bunch of battles hinged on this problem. Which brings us to the end of the 1600s, when English forces in Scotland got absolutely obliterated by a bunch of Highlanders in 1689 because the English were so busy trying to fix their bayonets that the Highlanders literally just charged them, fired one volley, and cut them down with swords and axes. The English took that one very personally (which, you know what, fair, it was a humiliating defeat, especially since the Highlanders had been using that tactic very successfully for a while) and started developing better bayonets.

This is where we get to socket bayonets, AKA what you would probably recognize as a bayonet from a period TV series or a museum.  Socket bayonets have a metal sleeve that gets attached around the barrel of a gun (in this case a musket), so that you can still theoretically use the damn gun while it's attached.  There were problems with the development of socket bayonets (notably, it took a while to figure out how to keep them from falling off the gun during battle), but overall they worked much better and armies started getting rid of pikemen. This was also when bayonets were shortened to a little over a foot, which isn't really important but made them much easier to maneuver.  Socket bayonets were the European order of the day by the early 1700s, and mostly came in three flavors: single edge (like a knife), double edge (like a sword), and spike (like a...spike).  There were pros and cons to all of these (single edge wasn't great for stabbing, spike was ONLY good for stabbing, and double edge was kind of okay at stabbing and kind of okay at slashing), but most importantly, both single and double edged bayonets were fragile.  The heads of polearms were shaped on patterns other than "sword on a stick" for a reason, and it's because "sword on a stick" is not very sturdy.

Triangular bayonets were the solution to this problem.  Triangular bayonets are basically a single piece of metal creased long-ways, with both edges sharpened and the top fluted to form a third edge at the crease.  This makes a much more resilient weapon than a flat blade, because a twisting motion doesn’t risk snapping the blade in the middle.  It also means that now you have three edges, and human nature is to figure “more knife better.”

And don’t get me wrong, as a weapon of war, the triangular bayonet was a great one.  It was introduced in the 1710s and then got used regularly to maim and terrify through the start of the 1900s.  In fact, the triangular bayonet worked so well that it only began to get phased out of use when the style of war itself started to change dramatically during the World Wars.  When warfare was focused on pitched battle (your old school “two armies enter, one army leaves” kind of warfare), the emphasis of a bayonet was on extending the reach of a gun.  A bayonet lets a soldier have a weapon for closer range combat, where a gun—especially a long gun like a musket—is not as effective.  So when you had two armies on the field and a bayonet was first and foremost a way to keep the enemy at least gun-length away, longer bayonets were better.  

But World War I was the advent of trench warfare, which was a terrible idea and also meant that a long weapon, like a gun with an extra foot and a half of sword on top, was much, MUCH harder to work with.  Either fighting took place in no man’s land, where you probably weren’t going to get close enough to use a bayonet anyway, or in a trench, where a weapon as long as you were tall was just impossible to work with.  

(If you know anything about WWI, you’re probably asking me about bayonet charges right now, specifically the concept of “going over the top.”  Contrary to every media representation of WWI ever, “going over the top” of a trench faded out of use pretty quickly.  It was a type of bayonet charge where the soldiers in ONE trench fixed their bayonets and tried to charge no man’s land in an effort to reach the OTHER trench, but it was basically never effective because no man’s land was often heavily trapped and strafed with gunfire and mortar shells.  Also, it was the kind of battle tactic that military history books talk about with phrases like “total annihilation of whole attacking battalions,” so that’s the kind of mortality rate we’re talking about here.  The Battle of the Somme featured a good number of bayonet charges by the British, for context, so people learned and started using other tactics.)

So, since bayonets were only useful in trenches, suddenly everyone was scrambling to shorten bayonets and guns so that their soldiers could get ANYTHING DONE.  And THEN soldiers started admitting that they were literally taking their bayonets off their guns and using them as knives instead, because for trench fighting that was way more useful, and so everyone just decided fuck it, let’s just make bayonet-knives, which is why WWI weapons with bayonets usually look, very literally, like someone duct taped a short knife to the front of a gun.  This was the start of the decline of the triangular bayonet, a full two hundred years after it hit the battlefield, which is a frankly spectacular run for any weapon since the invention of the gun.  Triangular bayonets held on, here and there, through part of WWII, but they were almost entirely gone by the time of the Geneva Convention being ratified in 1949.  However, spike or knife bayonets are still issued to many armies as a weapon of last resort to this day, although they aren’t often used in actual attacks.  Now we have bigger, worse weapons for actual attacks.

 TL;DR, the development of bayonets went like this:

“What if we put a pike ON a gun?  …oh wait, you still want to use the gun?  Sucks to be you, I guess.”

“What if we put a sword on the gun instead?  Then we could put it somewhere where we can still use the gun!  Good luck keeping it on there, though.”

“What if we actually made something designed to get put on a gun and stab people effectively?  Like, what if we designed something with that purpose in mind?  Perhaps?” SMASH CUT TWO CENTURIES

“Well if you’re just gonna take your bayonet off and stab someone with it anyway, can we just go back to giving you knives, then?”

And now you’re caught up on all the dubiously successful ways we’ve tried to mutilate people with a knife-gun.

[big1ron]

The Venator “Resolute” had jumped right into a separatist trap. Somehow a virus infecting the main computer has scrambled the hyperspace jump coordinates, and now the companies on board were outnumbered and without reinforcements, deep in separatist space. A few last, desperate SOSs to nobody, and the ship was quickly overwhelmed with fire. The Resolute was going down. But not before each of the escape pods could be jettisoned.

————- Chapter Five: Waiting. -————

- I think this one may be short aswell, sorry for the wait I’ve just not been doing amazing. But it’s here! Sorry. -

“Sir, we’re receiving a transition from a separatist base somewhere near the Vinda system. Should we patch it though?”

“Vinda? That’s certainly strange. Patch it though, but don’t respond. Make sure they can’t trace us.”

The radio crackles to life, and there is a significant amount of static and interference, but the message can be made out. “Haha! Yes! Great! If you’re receiving this, this is ARC-5555 “Fives” of the five-oh-first. We’ve been shot down, though most of the escape pods launched. There should be a coordinates package sent with this transmission. And- Wait hardcase what are you doing....” the message pauses, something that sounds like a response in the background. “No! Don’t do that! Hey, stop!” Another pause “I literally AM the boss of you!” A longer pause this time “no, what does that have anything to do with anything at all.” A slight shorter pause, “no, that’s stupid! You’re literally not even making any sense.” “ NO, NO you’re just wrong. I do not have time for this. You’re just wrong. Now I’m trying to get us off this planet so shut up please.” He sighs. “Sending the coordinates now.” The transmission ends.

Obiwan snickers. “Well that certainly wasn’t droids. Forward that message, and the attached files to general koon please, Cody.”

“Yes sir” man is Cody glad the 212th doesn’t usually behave like that. He doesn’t envy Rex, but those troopers sure are entertaining. He’s definitely going to tease Rex about this later.

Wolffe received the translation and chuckled to himself. The 501st sure was something else. “General, we’ve been looking in the wrong place! They’re way off course.”

Plo koon nodded and pressed a button on his comm link. “All units return to carriers. Set our course for the Vinda system!” The general gave the orders, and the 501st was finally looking at a rescue.

“Hey master, I found a road!” Ahsoka had been dragging her bike in the low power ‘hover’ mode while they had been searching for a refuelling stop.

“Great job snips. Now which direction do you want to take?”

“Hmmm left.”

“Yeah I was thinking right too. Alright, let’s go.”

“You’re impossible sky guy.”

“Wait, with all due respect sir, this is a separatist planet. Won’t this path take us right into a separatist base of some kind?” Rex cuts in.

“What’s the matter captain? Afraid of a little action? Besides, these are separatist issue bikes, a separatist base is exactly what we need.” So General skywalker leads the group leftwards down the path, dragging his bike behind beside him.

Soon enough, they spot the refuelling station that the road leads to. The three of them dive to the tree line, even though any droids should have surely heard or seen them by now. There are two wrecked speeder bikes by the refuelling station and a few destroyed droids littered about. Rex dares leave their cover enter the small base down the main road.

“Looks like a few of the boys have already been here.”

“Or are still here. Look!” Anakin points to the window of the small command outlet tower, and though it’s shaded glass, Rex can make out the back of a troopers head and shoulders, no doubt leaning against the terminal inside. “Ahsoka and I will refuel the speeders. You go check it out.”

Anakin and ahsoka moved the destroyed speeders out of the way with the force before moving their own to the station, while Rex cautiously entered the command outlet. He paused in the small corridor between the main communications room (probably a droid charging outlet) and listed in before entering, just out of personal curiosity more than anything.

“Oh my godssss-“

“-no no, no no listen to me-“

“-no how did you even get that conclusion!? How does ‘cereal is a salad’ equate to ‘general grievous should be classified as a sauce?!’ And why do you think those two things true?!”

“Just LISTEN to me! Ok? Because general grievous has his organs in a sack right? And those organs are in a liquid, right? It’s like a sauce. And his robot suit is just a really fancy jar because it keeps it contained and-“

“GENERAL GRIEVOUS IS NOT A SAUCE”

“SHUT UP AND LET ME EXPLAIN! Listen! You’ve never even seen him. And the droids, they’re all controlled by chips right? And- hey wait the cereal is a salad thing was a completely different topic! But milk is like the dressing you put on the salad, cause it’s optional and-“

“HOW IS GENERAL GRIEVOUS A SAUCE”

As much as rex really does want to hear how hardcase ends up explaining this one, he doesn’t want to keep the general waiting much longer and he doesn’t want one of them to end up maimed over cyborg sauces. He enters the room and immediately a blaster bolt whizzes right by his ear.

“You missed. Also, you almost shot me.”

“Rex! You found us!” Fives holstered his blaster and practically jumped up out of the chair he was leaning back in

“See? Both plans worked out. We took the base and we found rex.” Hardcase stopped pacing.

“At ease” Rex said sarcastically, as neither of them had actually gone to attention. Not that he really minded, but still. “It’s good to see you two. And nice work taking the post. Did you get a signal out?”

“Yes, I think so. We made a connection with a republic flagship, but the communication was one way. If the officers were doing their job right, we can assume help is on the way.”

“That’s great then. ...may I ask if there was another trooper in the pod with you?”

Hardcase and Fives hung their heads and looked to the floor. Hardcase rocked back on his heels and began fidgeting with his hands. “It was Tup sir... we lost him. Got separated.”

“Oh. I see.” Tup was an independent enough trooper, Rex had hope that he would survive alone. But if he didn’t turn up soon he would no doubt be left behind. “Well, I’ll tell the generals. We’ll stay here until rescue arrives. As you were.”

“Why do you get to decide which direction we go?” Asked echo to jesse, who was at the head of the group still with dogma on his back.

“Because I’m the highest rank here, so I’m in charge.”

“But we have the exact same rank. And I’ve been an ARC trooper longer.”

“Yeah but I’ve been with the 501st longer. And I’m older”

“Yeah well I’m Rex’s favourite so I should be in charge.”

“YOU’RE not his favourite! I don’t think he has favourites. And if he did it would probably be Hardcase.”

“Hardcase?! Hardcase isn’t even an ARC trooper. And i got into ARC training way before you did, while being in the 501st for a way shorter time. Rex clearly likes me best, or at least better than you.”

“Well he’s left me in charge multiple times while he’s gone. Even when you and Fives are available. So he trusts me to lead more responsibly obviously.“

“Will you two just cut it out?” Interjects Coric at the same time as Kix’s “just shut up already!”

Echo stuck out his leg and tripped Kix, not to be denied this victory. Jesse dropped Dogma and put himself between his favourite vod and Echo. But before things could even start Coric shoved them both apart

“If you two can’t stop fighting about who’s in charge, then we’ll go by seniority and that would be me. So you two stop annoying each other and behave! Echo, there’s no reason for you to be so mean to Kix, Jesse consider Dogma a bit more will you? And if all four of you can’t just get along I swear to kark I will MAKE you! Do I make myself clear?!”

“Yes coric.” Echo and Jesse mumble.

Tup slowly opened his eyes. He must have passed out at some point during that nightmare. He had lost time, and he had no idea where he was or what direction he was facing. Right, he was headed towards the rising sun, but what time was it? He grabbed a nearby tree and used it to pull himself up. His head spun for a few seconds, but other than a mild headache the fruit seemed to have no lasting side effects. His chest plate was hanging half off and he was missing various other armour pieces. His hair was a mess. Full of knots and leaves. And his blaster was gone. Whatever. He was still alive and even if he was going to be left behind for the rest of his life, he wasn’t dead. This was all Fives and Hardcase’s fault. And when he saw them again he would let them know it.

He took a minute to fix himself up best he could, but he still looked like a wreck and his other armour pieces were nowhere in sight. He felt unsafe without his blaster, so he settled with a reasonably sized stick he found (somewhere around 5ft long) to replace it. Yes, he was 1000% going to die here, but he pressed on anyways.

[seyaryminamoto]

"So… to answer your earlier question, no, I never stopped to think that maybe one day I'd fall in love with someone, and that I'd REGRET my encounters with those women BY THEN." Now I quoted right. This is a contradiction. There a some contradictions regarding this in your fanfic and answers. The same with having an erotic dream. He regrets it now. Because he didn't think he would fall in love with Azula.

I’ve likely said I’m done answering asks of this nature a thousand times. Hell knows why I’m bothering to do it now, but I really think it’s the last time I’ll bother, despite I ALREADY know that nothing I say will actually register in your head.

You refuse to accept any arguments I’ve presented to you, perhaps because you don’t bother reading my answers to give them actual thought, as you’re stuck in your perception of Sokka as some appalling, disloyal man despite the fact that he’s been 100% devoted to Azula since he first accepted his feelings for her properly (chapter 55). He has been with her, in-story, for about 2 years already, and he has never shown the slightest interest in any women besides Azula throughout those years.

But according to you, he’s the worst because he had one erotic dream about someone else before he had any sort of relationship with Azula, and because of his nightmarish experiences in Hui Yi.

Okay. My bad. You’ve finally convinced me of WHY I shouldn’t have panned over those two years in Hui Yi and jumped right in with the story I wanted to tell. Maybe if I had gone the show-don’t-tell route with that, despite I didn’t particularly want to, I wouldn’t be receiving asks like yours. And boy, I really would like that.

Warning: I’m really at my wits’ end. I thought to tone down my answer. I even did in many ways. But consider my patience tried, tested and broken, and if I sound far more aggressive and outraged than usual, it’s because I am. Please, learn from that, if you won’t learn from anything else.

So, apparently Gladiator’s Sokka must be some sort of terrible person, going by your fixation with this topic, and a bad love interest for Azula, because he doesn’t regret what happened in Hui Yi, in the classic sense of the word, right away. And I suppose you expect me to back down on this and say you’re right, oh no, he totally SHOULD have regretted it all along!

Well, the truth is, Sokka regrets one very specific thing all along: being stuck in a situation where he has no choices, where he has to live by the fucked up rules of someone like Huang Li. THAT is what he regrets. And NO, that is not a contradiction. I’m bluntly stating it. It’s a FACT. It’s something every last one of his recollections about Hui Yi is permeated with.

Why doesn’t he regret what he did with SEVEN, btw, SEVEN girls in Hui Yi? And I specify this because I suspect it was you who sent an ask about how it was ELEVEN? Checking 112, I find Sokka said in the middle of his explanations to Azula that eleven people survived: he’s talking about the GLADIATORS at that point, something that should be obvious by context, but apparently I have to waste hours of my time spelling things out one by one to anons, huh? That comment is NOT about how many people he was with, this is about the gladiators who had survived by the time Azula bought him off Huang Li. He outright told Azula the exact number of girls in the previous chapter, and she reached her own conclusions. That you (or whoever it was) misreads the chapters to this extent just to piss yourselves off further is proving how POINTLESS this entire debate is. You people (or you alone) don’t want to hear reason. You want to poke holes into the story that aren’t even there, to demand retribution from a fictional man who already went through hell on earth, just because he wasn’t 100% pure and untainted when he reached Azula’s bed. I’ve asked you to have empathy for his character before, clearly that you still send asks like these proves my request has gone to waste.

Well, let’s come back to the point: why doesn’t he regret it? BECAUSE OF THE FIRST WOMAN. Because of what happened to the one he outright put a stop to, because this wasn’t what he wanted, and the woman stopped indeed because she didn’t want to have sex with Sokka any more than he wanted it with her, and then they spent hours talking, and he offered her an emotional sort of comfort by being a decent guy who let her relax instead of forcing her to do things she wouldn’t want to...

AND THEN SHE GOT HER HAND CUT OFF FOR IT. AND SHE WAS TREATED AS A LESSER SLAVE AND HUMAN BEING BECAUSE OF IT.

According to you, upon hearing this story from the next girl who went for him, Sokka should’ve been like “Well damn, I do feel sorry for lady #1, the only person I’ve ever bonded with in Hui Yi, she’s been crippled for life and might even die from an infection for all I know, considering how damn hygienic Hui Yi has always been, but you see, lady #2, I must keep my body ~pure~ because one day I’m going to fall in love with someone and she won’t be with me if I was with sex slaves, despite I could ensure no other girls have to go through what lady #1 went through if I actually do sleep with you”. At least, that’s what I’m understanding out of your asks.

Well, great. Then he would’ve condemned this second girl to the exact same fate as the first :)

And the third :)

And however many there might have been :)

According to you, he should regret that he was with them right away, no matter if he actively felt like shit about what was going on, if it was the darkest period of his life: well, HERE is why he doesn’t regret it. Because if he HADN’T done it, those girls would’ve had it WORSE. The fact that I need to spell this out to you, in this way, is frankly ridiculous to me. You really could’ve reached that conclusion on your own if you had just TRIED, which makes me think you’re not trying at all. Anyone who’s old enough to read M-Rated fiction should be capable of connecting such basic, obvious dots. That you refuse to do it only to barge into my inbox demanding for me to explain every writing decision I make that you dislike, really doesn’t speak well of you.

So no, Sokka doesn’t REGRET what happened with those women right away because he was doing what he could to ensure they wouldn’t be tortured or maimed, at worst even KILLED, if it was discovered they hadn’t “fulfilled their duties”. Oh, but he would have been a damn great person if only he had decided to retain his “integrity” instead of saving innocent people’s lives, according to you...! :’D

Well, turns out if he had chosen to retain his integrity above all else, he probably would be dead by now. Because he wouldn’t have ever defeated a single gladiator in Hui Yi, not even the first one he fought, because he would have refused to kill anyone who wasn’t truly his enemy.

And there we go, story over :’) thank you for this glimpse into how short Gladiator would be if Aang was my protagonist. Very nice.

So of course, I suppose you’ll ask now why does he regret having done this years later, if he wasn’t sorry back then and his argument is so solid (not that you’ll think it is, why even imagine you would? Apparently sex slaves deserve to die, as far as I can understand of what you’ve said so far)? 

He regrets it now because, with that much distance between himself and what happened in Hui Yi, with that much time spent with someone he grew to love beyond he ever belived possible, he would MUCH RATHER have been a complete novice at everything and discovered everything about sex with her.

“Truth be told, I would have rather not been experienced at all… then again, if I hadn't been, our first time would have been a disaster, but… but it might have been worth all the more to learn all about this together, huh?”

He HATES that he had no choice but to go for it back then. He’s not proud of it in the least. If rejecting them wouldn’t have had such violent, catastrophic results, he would have always pushed them away. But he didn’t do that, AND he owns up to it in those chapters, even though he expects Azula will be as merciless as you appear to be and conclude he’s not worth her time anymore. Curiously, Azula actually understands that Sokka’s actions, especially those from BEFORE they were anything but enemies, back when he absolutely hated her, aren’t representative of who he is NOW. I can’t quite understand how that’s a concept that eludes you so badly, Anon.

Now, about the damn matter of him having an erotic dream about someone other than Azula, BEFORE having any about Azula (in case you didn’t notice, Sokka doesn’t tell June exactly WHEN he had this dream, so if you’re assuming it happened in recent times you’re basically only doing that to further rile up yourself against him? Which is, quite honestly, like shooting yourself in the foot): I take it you’ve never had any dreams in your life, have you, Anon? And I don’t mean erotic ones, I mean ANY dreams, whatsoever: can you control your dreams? Because if you can, boy, you’re pretty darn impressive! I’ve had some really ridiculous dreams, one that comes to mind was that I standing on a tight rope that I was suspended right above a waterfall, and I was about to fall. I was panicking like never before, despite the fact that, in real life, I’m not afraid of heights, I’ve never had any experiences with tight ropes and I think waterfalls are beautiful. And this is just ONE example, one very random example, of how dreams aren’t at all representative of a person’s true self.

Now then, please, tell me why on earth are you trying to hold this fictional man accountable for a completely random dream he had, BEFORE he had anything romantic with his love interest??? Can’t you tell how utterly unreasonable this is? It’s blowing me away that you’re not only clinging to this topic so badly, in this obsession to turn Sokka into some sort of monstrous, inadequate, terrible love interest for Azula, but that you’ve brought up this subject of him dreaming about one other woman in previous asks and submissions (that I didn’t answer because of how hard I facepalmed at them), as if it were ultimate proof of how untrustworthy he is. Normal people CAN’T control their dreams. Azula COULDN’T control her dream about Ursa back in Ember Island’s arc, she also couldn’t control the absolutely ridiculous dream she had in the Northern Air Temple, where she claims she’s carrying a baby for a friend! Are you going to come after her next, demanding that she is held accountable for having claimed she was carrying someone else’s fictional baby instead of proudly owning up to having a kid with the love of her life? Because, if you can tell that dream is just a pile of ridiculousness, I can’t see how you take this one of Sokka’s, which wasn’t even written because it was utterly irrelevant to the story, to mean ANYTHING. ESPECIALLY when said dream is explicitly said to have happened BEFORE he dreamt about Azula, which, once he wakes up, is what triggers his conscious, first real thoughts about Azula as a love interest!

*heavy breathing* Okay. Okay. That’s a lot to say. But I think I’m not done yet. I’m going to take advantage of this ask to quote a few things that have showed up in my inbox, that I didn’t reply to because I didn’t feel like it, plainly:

I wanted to know if Sokka would go the same way he did in the beginning with replacing Azula if she WOULD NOT be a princess?

... Why the hell is this even a question? The ENTIRE problem posed by Sokka and Azula’s relationship is that she IS a Princess and he’s a slave! Azula knows it! Sokka knows it! They both have thought and even outright said it countless times! How the heck does anyone, whether the same Anon as before or another one, if you were different people, read an ENTIRE story predicated on forbidden love between a Princess and a slave and not understand that the two main reasons these two SHOULDN’T want to be together, in the earliest arcs of the story, are:

She is RESPONSIBLE for turning him into a slave, which then caused him to spend 2 years suffering in what I THOUGHT was the worst possible depiction of the Fire Nation’s darkest tendencies but it apparently went over all your anon heads: he spent TWO YEARS holding the worst grudge against her for this, a grudge he still hasn’t completely let go of at chapter 28, hence why he continues to tell himself, back in those days, that he should hate her and why he doesn’t want to fall in love with her...

SHE IS A PRINCESS AND HE IS A SLAVE AND THERE’S NO WAY THEIR LOVE WILL HAVE A HAPPY ENDING UNLESS OZAI DIES, AZULA IS CROWNED AND SHE GETS TO MARRY HIM SO THEY CAN DO WHATEVER THEY WANT.

Seriously. It doesn’t take that much braining. It’s bloody stated constantly through the story. Will you people stop wondering why it’s important that she’s a Princess once we FINALLY reach Part 3 and the obvious consequences of their big romance are known? Or are you going to continue pretending there’s no reasons, whether characterization or world-building reasons, why these two have been keeping their relationship secret, and why the struggled that badly to cope with the feelings they developed for each other when they were in denial about it ages ago?

Anyways, if I really HAVE to answer this question, NO, if Sokka had started having feelings for a non-royal Azula and he didn’t think he’d ruin her life by acting on them, he wouldn’t have tried to flirt with Suki. He wouldn’t have slept with June. He wouldn’t have done any of the things he did in that arc, his reservations towards Azula wouldn’t be as strong as they are BECAUSE she’s a Princess, which means that being with her could outright cause her life to go to hell and he’s pretty sure he doesn’t want that for Azula, even before he accepts his feelings for her. If he wouldn’t ruin her life, he probably would have been reluctant anyways due to their unresolved bad blood (point #1 up there?), but he wouldn’t have been so sure they CAN’T be together, so he wouldn’t even have flirted with Suki and this entire plot arc wouldn’t be necessary.

But that’s NOT the story we’re getting. Why? BECAUSE AZULA BEING A PRINCESS IS ESSENTIAL TO THE STORY??? I MEAN??? IS THIS REALLY SOMETHING I HAVE TO EXPLAIN??? SHE IS ONE IN CANON??? SHE IS ONE HERE??? WHY WOULDN’T SHE BE A PRINCESS???

... Dear god, have mercy on me. You really make me feel like I have devoted 7 years of my life to a huge waste of time if I can’t even get the most obvious plot points of the story across to you people.

One girl instance maybe but my shipper heart could never make Sokka get involved with SO MANY girls. 11? Will it keep growing?

This is the one Anon I was talking about earlier. Ha. Fucking HILARIOUS. Not only purposefully misunderstanding that it’s ELEVEN GIRLS, but asking if the number of girls Sokka will get involved with will increase beyond an already false number? Are you FUCKING KIDDING ME?

What does commitment mean to you, goddammit. What do you even think the word stands for? Seriously, if you were to fall in love with someone, and then it doesn’t work out, but you find a second person later who seems perfectly nice and everything you DO need... would you say “Oh no but I already soiled myself by loving someone else, I AM UNWORTHY OF YOU!!”, because you made a commitment in the past that didn’t pay off, which, for some fucked up reason beyond my understanding, means you can’t commit to someone new?

This is Disney Romance logic. Hell, Disney Romances are more complex than your thinking, actually! Anna from Frozen is ready to marry Hans, ends up realizing Hans was an asshole at the worst possible timing and goes for Kristoff later instead: are we going to stone her for not realizing Hans was the worst right away? How on EARTH could she commit to Kristoff now, when she had been ready to be with another guy BEFORE she even met him?!?!

Another example: Meg from Hercules! She falls for a guy, literally SELLS her soul to Hades for him, and the douchebag ditches her for another girl. At this point, Hercules (at least, film-wise) has been a perfectly pure virginal boy and he falls for Meg dorkily: IS MEG THE WORST WOMAN EVER, UNWORTHY OF HERCULES AND ALL HIS HARD WORK FOR HER, BECAUSE SHE ALREADY HAD LOVED ANOTHER GUY BEFORE HIM AND HERCULES DOESN’T HAVE AS MANY EXPERIENCES WITH LOVE AS SHE DOES???

Sounds extreme? Well, that is literally what that question sounds like to me, Anon.

People in this world get into as many relationships as they want to. People don’t always find love right away. People can fall in and out of love. People can have meaningless encounters with others just because they feel like it.

And even then, there’s a chance any of those people will eventually find someone they will be happy with, for good, for the rest of their lives! Why the HELL would their past have anything to do with their ability to commit to the “right” partner in the future? Commitment ISN’T about having no romances or relationships with anyone else until you found the right person: commitment is about THE RIGHT PERSON. It’s about CHOOSING that person, for good, for the rest of your life if that’s how you want it! If you’re “committed” to someone but all you ever do is look at how many people they were with before you, or thinking “he’s gonna cheat on me as soon as I tear my eyes off him”, YOU HAVE A PROBLEM. IT’S NOT YOUR SIGNIFICANT OTHER, IT’S YOU. 

Because you don’t trust the guy! Because you refuse to believe his commitment to you is real! And hell, in some cases, maybe it’s not real! Maybe the person in question is going to cheat on you! But in some cases it is, and how the FUCK would you feel if you were in a relationship with someone who keeps assuming your love for them isn’t real? Someone who thinks your commitment to them is false because as soon as you find a better offer, you’ll go running and ditch them, no matter if you have said and proven you love them a thousand times? If that person kept trying to control who you’re friends with, who you talk to, if you’re close to anyone you COULD MAYBE HAVE any romantic history or attachment to? That’s fucking TOXIC. And that’s a thousand times worse than ANYTHING I’ve written between Azula and Sokka, just an FYI. I honestly despise how this shit has been romanticized often by newer generations, such as boyfriends or girlfriends going through their partner’s messages with other people to make sure they’re not being cheated on: this is sick. It’s stupid to be with someone if you’re CONSTANTLY SECOND-GUESSING YOUR RELATIONSHIP. FOR THAT MATTER, DON’T BE IN A RELATIONSHIP AT ALL.

And see, Azula hasn’t second-guessed Sokka in ages. She really hasn’t. After that conversation in 112, Azula UNDERSTOOD what I’ve been trying to tell you all along: Sokka’s past doesn’t determine his future. He often made mistakes, bad decisions, mostly making them as a consequence of the pain he has endured, but he’s making a constant effort to make the right decisions by Azula since AGES before they have this conversation. After June he has no other one-night-stands. He shows no real interest in any other girls. He outright begged Azula to help him get rid of his goddamn stalker, who HARASSED him and left her goddamn underwear in his bed (he bloody CHANGED the entire bed due to how disgusted he was by this behavior).

Please, explain: how the fuck you see a guy who has spent about 125 chapters conscisouly growing, developing and fully commiting himself to a girl as a guy who will cheat on her and have more relationships and find more girls?

Want me to come out with something you won’t see coming, dear Anon?

AZULA IS GOING TO HAVE AN EXPERIENCE WITH SOMEONE OTHER THAN SOKKA IN THE FUTURE, EVEN AFTER HAVING COMMITTED FULLY TO HIM IN EVERY SENSE THAT COUNTS. THE CRIME YOU’RE SO DAMN AFRAID SOKKA WILL COMMIT? IT’LL BE AZULA COMMITTING IT, NOT HIM.

And in the mean time, Sokka won’t ever be with anyone but Azula until the time he dies :’) something I’ve ALREADY answered in many asks in the past.

Wow. Spoilers much? Well, you fucking asked for it. I’m so damn tired of this, Anon. I’m seriously, SERIOUSLY, tired of this. But I HAVE to keep going :’) because if I don’t? You’ll come back. And I really don’t want you to.

Why did you absolutely want to make Sokka sleep with someone different that day? From my get Sokka was already angry at Azula and the things would've been not any different if he wouldn't have done it. So why did you have the need to make him sleep with someone that badly when things wouldnt be any different. Only the falling into forest wouldve been a bit different. I can't see why this sleeping with someone was so neccessary. Why was it important for you?

Why did I absolutely want it? I didn’t. I actually didn’t. 

Here’s a funny secret: my beta at the time was the one to suggest Sokka could do this. I wasn’t exactly big on the idea, until the character of June popped in my head and I realized that actually might work within the story: she’s not only physically similar enough to Azula that I could get away with basically writing it as a Sokkla hate-sex scene until Sokka realizes it’s not her, but June is also a completely free-spirited character whose entire priorities in the world are money and her shirshu. That’s literally it. With a character like June? There was no need to worry about the unpleasant twists I often see in fics where the main couple aren’t together yet, and either one or both members of the couple go for other people until they finally choose to be together: June WASN’T going to fall in love with Sokka. She doesn’t give a flying fuck about him. She’s amused by the situation until she’s annoyed by him. Then she’s amused again when she connects the dots once she sees Azula and Sokka at the nasty town where they bump into each other. And she ONLY grows fond of Sokka at the same time as she grows fond of Azula: IN JEONG JEONG’S ARC :’) Before that? These two probably don’t even cross her mind outside of hearing occasional rumors about Azula, and then she probably just used to go “lol I wonder if she finally had the guts to make a move on him”. 

Hence, June was my ideal choice. She didn’t care. She doesn’t give a single fuck in 28. She’s just in it for her own amusement, for her own satisfaction. Anyone else? An OC, Suki, anyone else who could’ve crossed my mind? They might have actually developed feelings for Sokka. And I didn’t want THAT. Hence, I didn’t do that. I chose June because I wanted this to be a bad moment that would stay in the past with no chances of rekindling in the future.

Now, why did I follow suit with my beta’s suggestion? Because she was right about one thing, at the time: Sokka isn’t committed to Azula at this point. Sokka is furious upon thinking he’s fallen into Azula’s web and he refuses to play her game. That he ends up sleeping with someone else, and going to her that night, and shouting all the things he does, was Sokka’s attempt to defy Azula’s eagerness to control his life, which, yes, she is attempting to do just that. She’s developing feelings for him, sure, but she doesn’t want him to be free to choose because she’s SURE he won’t ever choose her. A main element in Azula’s Part 1 character development was meant to be about teaching Azula that upon building a real, honest bond with Sokka, he’d end up choosing her above everything else, WHICH, BY THE TIME SHE’S LEARNED TO GIVE HIM SUCH FREEDOM, HE DOES.

Sokka isn’t a perfect romance lead. I never planned for him to be that. I have written perfect romance leads! Fact is, Rui Shi is basically that, isn’t he? So I don’t even have to dig around to find an example. Sokka was NEVER meant to be perfect. And his starting point with Azula is DREADFUL. He is absolutely attracted to her physically, but his constant resisting of their attraction results in him making terrible mistakes that he has to own up to, AND HE DOES :’) Constantly. He doesn’t EVER force Azula to think she must be committed to him, because he doesn’t even feel worthy of her most the damn time! All of it, due to those mistakes he made! Azula outright has to tell him to forgive himself because he just won’t do it! :’D He’s even worse about this than you are, Anon, fancy that!

And why isn’t Sokka a perfect romance lead, even if I’ve done my very best in recent arcs to make him as romantic and caring and giving towards Azula as he possibly can be? Because I don’t care for writing a static, boring, simplistic story. I just don’t. There’s too much baggage, too much drama, too many things Sokka and Azula HAD to resolve before their relationship reached the heights it has.

So, sure, let’s imagine Sokka doesn’t sleep with June. Then, Azula doesn’t know he’s ever been with someone else, because he’s ashamed of what he HAD TO DO in Hui Yi and doesn’t want her to know about it anyhow: once she finds out about it, she’ll feel a thousand times more betrayed than she already did because she would have wrongfully assumed he was every bit as pure as she was. How NICE it would be if he hadn’t been with anyone that night! :’)

But let’s focus on the plot for a sec, will we? Forget about Xin Long: if Sokka hadn’t met June beforehand, and she doesn’t understand what’s up with Sokka and Azula, June won’t give a single crap about Azula’s plight and won’t tell her where the Rough Rhinos went :’) then, chances are the Rough Rhinos escape. And if the Rough Rhinos escape, Azula’s first big successful mission is a failure. She doesn’t get lost with Sokka in the forest, she doesn’t find her dragon, she fails her father and she probably won’t have many other opportunities to prove herself in the future. Iroh gets away with proving Azula can’t fulfill Ozai’s expectations, and probably uses this as leverage to convince more of Ozai’s court that Zuko is a better candidate for the throne, considering he’s already the firstborn child :’)

LOVELY, ISN’T IT??? :’)

Sokka wasn’t that angry until he does sleep with June, because by then he confirms what he already suspects: he can’t get Azula out of his mind, no matter what. His ENTIRE plan with June (and Suki) was to get involved with any other woman so he could get rid of his feelings for Azula by basically transferring them to someone else. To break free from Azula’s influence on him. Why? 

BECAUSE HE DOESN’T WANT TO LOVE THE WOMAN WHO, EVEN IF INDIRECTLY, PUT HIM THROUGH THE HELL OF HUI YI. 

THE WOMAN WHO DRAGGED HIM AWAY FROM HOME. 

THE WOMAN WHO HOLDS HERSELF RESPONSIBLE FOR EVERYTHING THAT WENT WRONG IN SOKKA’S LIFE, EVEN IF SOKKA HIMSELF WON’T HOLD HER ACCOUNTABLE FOR MOST OF THESE THINGS ANYMORE.

No, I don’t think it’s unreasonable for him to feel this way about Azula. They had been getting to know each other for a few months, sure! But half that process had been arguments and spats, clashes and problems that sometimes had terrible outcomes. Remember Azula was outright ready to ditch Sokka as her gladiator after his second fight? She was DETERMINED to do that, until she received a challenge by the Blind Bandit, and she took advantage of this challenge to TEST SOKKA. TO SEE IF HE HAD LEARNED HIS LESSON, ONLY FOR HIM TO END UP HALF-DEAD AS A RESULT.

Can’t you tell both of them made a thousand mistakes, ESPECIALLY at the start of the story? 

IT’S NOT AN ACCIDENT. IT’S DELIBERATE. I WANTED THEM TO MAKE THOSE MISTAKES! BECAUSE CHARACTERS WHO MAKE MISTAKES LEND THEMSELVES FOR BETTER STORIES!

I am sick to my core of the Internet’s purity bullshit of the past years. It’s disgusting to me. The fact that I’ve read there are writers out there who are outright whitewashing their own characters’s worst traits in major media content instead of working them out narratively? It makes me want to hurl. This is NOT quality storytelling. If you, as a writer, choose a setting with specific strife and difficult themes, you don’t get away with shirking off those themes and pretending they’re not there because “oh no, someone will be uncomfortable and I can’t possibly risk that!” You don’t write a character as racist on one season only to downplay the racism in later seasons, with no development needed, so that people won’t hate that character as much as they used to (that link is a specific, direct example of what I’m referring to, one that hopefully will explain why, when my characters fuck up, I do my best to make them 1. own up to it 2. learn from it 3. never make the same mistakes again :’) but I don’t even know if you’ll bother watching five minutes of an explanation, considering you’ll probably stopped reading my reply about 5K words ago).

Hence, I wrote Sokka making the mistakes he made DELIBERATELY. 100% KNOWINGLY. I knew there would be people uncomfortable with it: I’M UNCOMFORTABLE WITH IT! I don’t like this particular element of my story! But do I think it was necessary? YES. Because with the conflict triggered by BOTH Azula and Sokka’s mistakes during the earliest arcs of the story, their characters DEVELOP. They GROW. They CHANGE. Without such development, there’s NO WAY the story would be where it is now. And maybe you’d be fine with that, but I sure as fuck am not. Gladiator isn’t exempt of flaws, of course it’s not, and I have no delusions of the opposite, but what you’re so obsessed with isn’t necessarily a flaw, it’s merely something you personally disliked and that you can’t seem to get over!

Which... begs the question. It really does.

WHY ARE YOU READING A STORY THAT MAKES YOU SO UNCOMFORTABLE?

I thought making Sokka work for Azula’s forgiveness to such humiliating extent (she literally walks over him at one point? He keeps shrinking and wincing and being completely mild and meek around her because he’s that sorry for what he did? He virtually STARVES himself in the forest so Azula can eat because she’s the one that matters, not himself?) would somehow make people like you, and as far as I know, many others, realize that Sokka was genuinely sorry. That Sokka had finally understood where he’d gone wrong, and that he would never misunderstand Azula’s feelings and intentions that way again.

Clearly, I was the one who was wrong. Because yep, it’s not just you, there’s a ton of people out there who can’t seem to get over what Sokka did in those chapters, or what he did in Hui Yi. And you know, I really think it’s unfair? Both on the characters, and on me as the writer? Because it’s not like I swept things under a rug, like in that link I gave you up there: I put Sokka through the wringer constantly, in fact, to the point where I even have thought it was too much! And beyond that... Sokka meant to stay by Azula’s side as her gladiator and nothing more, at first. Once they finally talk things through, that’s what they’re determined to be: there’s still lingering feelings, but their plan is to NOT act on them. And yes, it’s true, Sokka has one slip-up when Azula helps him cope with his feelings in chapter 50! But that’s what it’s framed as: a slip-up. He was impulsive, unable to hold back the emotions that led him to kiss her, and she kisses him back until they both realized this WASN’T supposed to happen between them ever again. Then, Sokka looks after Azula while she’s sick, and all his protective instincts are triggered... to the point where he realizes he outright LOVES Azula.

And even then, Sokka doesn’t act on his feelings again until Ember Island, point at which he only acts on them to show Azula she is NOT the monster she thinks she is. He does it FOR HER. He outright refrains from taking their exchanges as far as he deeply wanted them to go, because this is NOT ABOUT HIM. He wanted to make sure Azula would feel better, that she would understand she’s only human, and that her worst sides don’t make her any less human than anyone else.

My point is: I didn’t make Sokka work as hard as he did because he thought he’d get it on with Azula if he earned her forgiveness. I didn’t make Sokka fall in love with Azula while thinking only of himself, his feelings, his needs, above hers: IT’S THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF THAT. This guy is so in love with her he forgets himself with her, he’d die for her, hell, he’d even KILL for her, when one of Sokka’s biggest traumas EVER is about having to kill people. He doesn’t want to do that EVER AGAIN. And yet, if it’s for Azula’s sake, he will sacrifice his soul as many times as he must to keep her safe.

But the biggest thing I have to stress here? Sokka would have been willing to do every single one of those things for her even if Azula hadn’t wanted anything romantic to happen between them ever again.

If Azula had rejected him, kept him at bay, and the story had turned into an unbearable pining soap opera forevermore, Sokka would STILL do everything he has done for Azula. He wouldn’t expect her to love him back. He wouldn’t make demads of her in those regards. He would only love her as he does, because that’s what love is for this man. That’s what I developed him for. And if you don’t care to see it, Anon, that’s 100% on you, because I KNOW that’s what is there. You can’t simply take two instances of Sokka saying two stupid things and annul 188 chapters of Sokka developing into a man who would outright choose Azula OVER HIS OWN FAMILY. If you can’t understand the magnitude of this decision, how much it means for Sokka, SOKKA, to choose someone above his family? Above his people? Then you’ve got a real serious problem with grasping Sokka’s character. A very, very serious one. Probably since canon.

So... to finish off this particular subject: IT’S IMPORTANT FOR ME BECAUSE I WANT MY CHARACTERS TO GROW, CHANGE AND DEVELOP. AND THAT’S WHY I TOOK MY BETA UP ON THAT SUGGESTION AS I DID. I DON’T WANT MY CHARACTERS TO BE PERFECT RIGHT OFF THE BAT BECAUSE IT’S WRONG, IT’S BORING, IT’S NOT EVEN IC. IT MAKES NO SENSE TO ME, AS A WRITER, TO WRITE ABOUT CHARACTERS WHO CAN DO NO WRONG AND WHO NEVER HAVE TO CHANGE THEIR WAYS. BOTH AZULA AND SOKKA HAVE HAD TO GROW A TON THROUGHOUT GLADIATOR, AND IF YOU CAN’T SEE SOKKA’S GROWTH FOR YOURSELF, I’M PRETTY DAMN SURE IT’S BECAUSE YOU DON’T WANT TO SEE IT.

Sooo sick of people stories ALWAYS let men fuck be the lucky one and get the perfect woman who gives herself COMPLETELY to him. Then man says „its in the past I love you only" wtf? Sleep with others use it on Azula his 9th on the list. I respect you for being so strong and writing this as a girl. I get the crisis, so tired. Kudos Azula for letting herself in his arms so comfortably. I REALLY wish I could do this too. At least Suki and Song are lucky. Sorry for venting I'm just broken and stupid

I have no idea if this is you too. Maybe it is. But if not, I’m quoting it too, because why the fuck not. Why the fuck not.

I suppose I can at least commend this one for knowing Azula is the 9th rather than the 12th, huh? At least they read that much right.

To this Anon: please, stop venting about this to the writer who apparently disappointed you that badly for making a decision that is consistent with the situation the characters are in.

Frankly, I’m absolutely grossed out by the people who seem to think Azula, Princess Azula unto whom I’ve forced horrible purity societal pressures that ARE UNFAIR AND MAKE NO SENSE, AND SHE CONSTANTLY SAYS SO THROUGH THE STORY, should have had as many experiences as Sokka so that “they’re even”. The bloody audacity to look at what Sokka went through in Hui Yi and think “WELL BUT IT’S SEX SO AZULA SHOULD HAVE LOTS OF GUYS TOO!” completely BAFFLES me.

Literally, Azula’s ONLY experience before Sokka, AKA, CHAN, is a thousand times healthier and more genuine than ANYTHING Sokka ever went through. And nobody is fucking throwing a fit about that.

Why do I say this? :D

NOBODY WAS FORCING AZULA TO KISS CHAN. NOT IN CANON. NOT IN GLADIATOR

AZULA LIKED CHAN AND DELIBERATELY CHOSE TO GO FOR HIM BECAUSE SHE FELT LIKE IT. NO ONE WAS MAKING THIS CHOICE FOR HER.

AZULA WASN’T PRETENDING CHAN WAS SOMEONE ELSE WHILE SHE KISSED HIM. SHE WAS PERFECTLY FULFILLED BY KISSING A GUY FOR THE FIRST TIME BECAUSE THAT’S LITERALLY WHAT SHE WAS LOOKING FOR.

Meanwhile: Sokka is FORCED to be with the women in Hui Yi. Someone is going to outright either hurt or kill them if he doesn’t do it.

Meanwhile: Sokka didn’t necessarily like any of the women he was with, not the Hui Yi ones, not June. June merely wants mindless fucking, Sokka tells her from the start he doesn’t think it will work at all: IT DOESN’T. It’s JUNE being forward. At worst, Sokka can be blamed for not putting a harsh stop to June before anything happened. But he wasn’t even the one with the initiative: JUNE WAS. In Hui Yi, goes without saying, he didn’t get to choose, they basically would just go to him and he’d do what he had to do. The fucking end.

Meanwhile: Sokka was dead-like with June up until he lets himself imagine she’s Azula, the only way for him to actually go forward with what’s going on. Afterwards, HE’S APPALLED WITH HIMSELF. HE’S MISERABLE. HE’S UNHAPPY. 

Azula had the normal, nice, socially acceptable teenage experience of having a brief crush on a guy and trying to see if something would come from it: SOKKA HAS BEEN A SLAVE EVER SINCE CHAPTER 2. Their social positions are MILES apart. And, as free as Sokka is to fuck whoever he wants: HE DOESN’T CHOOSE, DELIBERATELY, TO DO SO. He only does it in Hui Yi and with June, and after realizing with June that this just won’t work because he won’t get Azula off his mind, HE DOESN’T SLEEP WITH ANYONE ELSE UNTIL HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH AZULA BEGINS.

You’re basically pretending that a slave, in the lowest of levels in society, lives his life freely without restraint, just as a girl at the top of the world can. They both have very specific problems: Azula is forced NOT to be with anyone until marriage, whether she wants someone or not, whereas Sokka ends up getting sex FORCED ON HIM. Completely, radically opposite sides of a spectrum that I’ve done my damnedest to build up believably and understandably. But all this just goes over your head, right? You’d much rather ignore and annul my entire fucking worldbuilding, just because it tickles you poorly that the guy in this story has more experience in sex than the girl. You’re throwing major themes in Gladiator out the window (Azula outright fighting to demand actual equality instead of the subtle, constant, undermining sexism the Fire Nation is permeated with), because it makes you personally uncomfortable for a girl to be a virgin and a guy not to be (despite, in this day and age, there’s A LOT of content in the world where characters involved are either perfectly virginal or equally promiscuous, and you could be enjoying that instead of reading Gladiator).

Newsflash: you’re just as bad as the people who demand virginity and purity from women if you demand it from men. 

Nobody is LESS or MORE of a person because of how many people they sleep with. NOBODY. This shouldn’t even have to be said. I can’t even believe that it NEEDS to be, but I’m saying it anyways. It’s absolutely STUPID to me that there’s readers out here that weigh everything in regards of how many people someone has been with. What sort of backwards mentality is this? 

By far, Gladiator-wise, NO ONE has slept with as many people as Ty Lee has. 

NO ONE.

Where’s the goddamn shitfest at Ty Lee for this? Haru had a few experiences before being with her, sure! But they were NOTHING compared to the amount Ty Lee had. Ty Lee did whatever the hell she wanted since her teenage years, with whoever she wanted, and she got away with it until she was caught. Then, Azula stepped in to help her avoid total social annihilation! :’D why?

BECAUSE IT SHOULDN’T MATTER HOW MANY PEOPLE TY LEE HAS BEEN WITH. BECAUSE AZULA KNOWS TY LEE’S WORTH AS A HUMAN BEING HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH HOW “PURE” SHE MAY BE BEFORE MARRIAGE.

JUST AS AZULA’S OWN WORTH IS FAR AND BEYOND AND ABOVE THAT SHIT :’)

And god, it’s just so ridiculous! Soooo ridiculous! That I’m out here, writing a huge story that’s meant to feature, eventually, the big fallout resulting of the discovery of Azula’s long-gone purity, a fallout that Azula will be fighting against with all her might, trying to defend her right to live her life, to love whoever she wants, to defend her worth and value as a person and resist the traditionalistic oppressive tyranny of her own FATHER...!

And you’re out here, fucking shitting yourself in rage, because Sokka has had more sexual partners and experiences than Azula.

It’s fascinating for the whole POINT of the story to soar so far over your head that you just can’t even see it anymore. For you to be so hung up on stuff Sokka did between chapters 2-3 and in chapter 28, AND NOTHING MORE, as if THAT is what determines Sokka’s worth as a human being and as Azula’s partner. And damn, try as I might, I can’t make someone learn better if they’re stuck with this mentality because they truly believe that if you’ve had more partners you’re somehow worse than by having less. I can’t. It’s up to you people to get over this attitude, because I can’t do more to teach you human nuance and complexity than I already have. I’m too tired to try anymore.

And of course, writers shouldn’t have to defend their work as I’m defending mine now. I should probably just lie down and take the criticism I’m tossed without complaint, shouldn’t I? I mean, haha, I also got this Anon, so very considerately, saying:

Hello I am that anon who asked you the Sokka sleeping with someone question. I think you shouldn't stress or get angry and hurt when you get question about this matter. It is a big and questiniongly part of your story. No one can judge your talent or you but people can ask questions about this or can't they? Its just that it was not neccessary for some readers seems like.

Which, I think, is probably the first person all over again.

I SHOULDN’T get stressed or angry or hurt? Oh, wow. So, on top of everything, I can’t even have feelings. I’m supposed to be a fucking doormat :’) beautiful. I love it.

Have you taken notice of how many asks I’ve already quoted in this answer? That’s not even half of what I’ve had in my inbox pertaining this subject, whether from you or someone else. Back when the story was starting? I got asks about this VERY OFTEN, by someone who eventually came back and apologized (and boy, do I hope that none of the asks I’ve quoted were sent by that person, I seriously hope they didn’t backtrack on their apparent understanding of what I was doing with the story), and I don’t even know how many others too. It was people, just like you, who would read over my answers and just cherrypick the story trying to find any excuses to villify Sokka and paint him as undeserving and ungrateful and I don’t even know what else regarding Azula and their bond. Whether because he slept with a “ton” of people or because he made her cry or because of whatever reason you want to choose.

... When Azula can be fucking held responsible for literally making Sokka suicidal.

Fucking grapple with that for a sec, can you? :’) Imagine what it’s like falling in love with someone who once hurt you so badly you thought you wanted your life to be over. Do tell me how easily you’d get over your reservations, LONG before this person even SAYS SHE’S SORRY. BECAUSE. HAHA. AZULA DIDN’T EVEN APOLOGIZE FOR IT FOR FIFTY-FIVE CHAPTERS. JUST AN FYI. AND NONE OF YOU. NOOOONE OF YOU. GIVE A SHIT ABOUT THAT DETAIL. IT’D BE HILARIOUS IF IT WEREN’T SO OUTRAGEOUS.

Anyways. Getting back on track: people HAVE asked questions about this. Constantly. Consistently. Without restraint, ever since I first wrote it. Without bloody bothering to go through my blog first and find out if maaaaybe I’ve already addressed their concerns. And the worst part? I’ve actually had many askers, countless anons, lots of people talking to me about many things. Yes, I’ve had a million arguments on Tumblr, and not everything ended well.

But pal. Pal. Guess what’s the only subject that KEEPS ON COMING RIGHT BACK, NO MATTER HOW MANY TIMES I DEAL WITH IT, AND IT’S ALWAYS, ALWAYS, WITH THE SAME SPECIFIC “SOKKA IS THE WORST” FOCUS???? :’)

Think about something you did seven years ago. Be it something you were proud of, or something you’re sad about, or just something that you really don’t think much of anymore, because you’ve moved on from that since ages ago.

And then imagine spending seven years. Receiving questions. Constantly. Whether rude or not. Whether thoughtful or not (usually the latter, tbh). Whether necessary or not. Whether already answered or not. About that very thing you’ve been over. That very specific thing from SEVEN YEARS AGO.

I’m tired, Anon, of dealing with this specific subject, because everyone who has come to me with this BS has been a pain in the ass: THEY KEEP COMING BACK. YOU’RE NOT THE FIRST ONE WHO DOES. IT’S INCREDIBLE. I’ve answered a thousand asks, and I do get follow-up questions sometimes, but NEVER as many or as frequently as THIS! And the part that I just can’t believe is that there’s people who write stuff that are thousands of times more complicated than what I did here (in terms of giving the characters even MORE love interests, like, genuine love triangles and actual love involved rather than a mere quick thing), and I don’t see anyone giving them a single hint of grief for that. Not even a smidge, not even if they leave the subject up in the air or unresolved later on. I’ve read stories that feature pairings I’m absolutely uncomfortable with, actual pairings that have a longer lasting relationship in the story than the pairing I was reading for! There’s literally a story in another fandom where the main relationship lasts, what, 6 months? Maybe? And then they break up. And then the guy goes on to have a fuckbuddy for YEARS. Meaning, the relationship with the fuckbuddy is longer and more stable than the ship the story is actually marked for.

And I didn’t give the writer even the SLIGHTEST grief for it.

Why the hell do you (and everyone else who has been so hung up about this subject) feel the need, or the entitlement, to determine that I need to put up with these questions? That I somehow earned them and need to answer them every time? Because, heh, I outright stopped answering for a long time because I didn’t want to. Because I was TIRED. Because I hoped, fruitlessly, that if I didn’t give you guys the attention you were so desperate for, you’d eventually get bored or realize that I DON’T CARE FOR THIS SUBJECT ANYMORE. I AM OVER IT. I HAVE BEEN OVER IT FOR AGES.

But SOMEHOW, getting me to the point where I’d be stressed, upset, outraged and annoyed was absolutely worth it for you guys. Seriously, what the hell do you think I am? A big monolith that just spews words and has zero emotions whatsoever? I’ve given SEVEN YEARS of my life to this story. Have you ever done this for ANYTHING in your life? Have you ever devoted yourself to a project to this extent? No? Then you don’t get to dictate whether I should be annoyed, upset, angry, irritated or whatever the fuck I feel when I get asks as persistent, thoughtless and devoid of proper reflection as the ones I CONSTANTLY get over 28 and everything related to Sokka’s past with named and nameless women alike.

And hey, just so you know, someone recently said they thought it wasn’t necessary for Whaletail Island’s arc to end as it did. That there shouldn’t be a 1-year interval until Sokka can meet his family, his FATHER, again. That Katara, Aang, Zuko and Kino totally should have stayed outside the South Pole and helped fight against Ozai merely because the Gaang was FINALLY together!!!

... Conveniently forgetting the ENTIRE purpose for the South Pole group’s trip to Whaletail Island was for them to find food with which they could help a starving, dying village.

So excuse me if some people “questioning” my story doesn’t make me question my choices the way you guys apparently expect me to. Because at this point, the “questioning” I’m receiving is honestly so thoughtless, so poorly conceived, just done for YOUR SUBJECTIVE CONVENIENCE, without taking the full picture into account, even in situations like this one, where it’s bloody obvious Zuko won’t go fight the Fire Nation when his wife and child could be the next ones to bite the dust and that’s the whole reason he even left??? I’m not even talking about the bigger picture that I get to see as a writer, I mean the bigger picture in regards of character feelings and motivations... you people do see that. You have it, explained outright, perhaps too explained! Hell, if my literature teachers read Gladiator they’d likely cringe at how often I SPELL EVERYTHING OUT instead of leaving a few things for the reader to fill the gaps! Oh, but naaaaah, I have to come here, spend HOURS of my day answering asks about why Sokka got to sleep with people when Azula didn’t, and why do I think he’s loyal to her if he did that before he was committed to Azula, and if he’s going to sleep with more people because of COURSE, if he was with anyone else before her it means he will be again in the future...!

When I could be using all this time to actually work on stuff that I DO want to work on. Namely, building up the story further. With some very dark, serious, difficult developments that I’m trying to be in the right place to write.

And asks like these? They sure as fuck don’t help. Not only do they distract me, they have NOTHING to do with what I’m working on right now. I’ve considered the subject of Sokka’s past experiences as closed and DONE since chapter 112, and I don’t need you, or anyone else, to come to me and beg for more explanations than the pretty damn extensive ones you already got in a PRETTY DAMN EXTENSIVE STORY.

If you still read Gladiator at this point. If you reach chapter 187 and see a Sokka who hugs Azula, twirls her in midair, damn near crying of bliss because she said she loved him in public, in front of their siblings, a Sokka who is choosing to stay with her, without a shred of a doubt, with his heart COMPLETELY set on HER, instead of going back to a family who used to be THE ONLY THING he cared about in life, and you somehow conclude “this guy would totally cheat on Azula if he had the chance”... then I’m sorry but I HAVE every right to be angry. I have every right to be completely beside myself as I am. 

Because you’re basically saying that I spent SEVEN YEARS developing this character, this relationship, this story, and it went to waste. Because you refuse to believe, for personal reasons, that Sokka is in any way deserving of his bond with Azula. Because somehow you think this is CONTRADICTORY, when merely looking at things with a slightly more open mind, reveals that this isn’t contradiction: IT’S NUANCE. It’s COMPLEXITY. It’s the fact that a character can change their mind about certain things, they can deplore certain mistakes they made, they can regret their actions in retrospect, and my characters? They sure do that. All the bloody time. Azula does it constantly, and for good reason. But it just goes right over your head, and it’s because you want it to. I refuse to believe you can’t understand what I’ve explained before, and what I’m explaining now: you don’t want to understand it, which is different. You want to condemn Sokka, and you want to feel validated in your discomfort about one specific, long-resolved plot point of the story, demanding for explanations of why it was necessary when you really don’t care for the explanations: you just wish it hadn’t happened at all.

And great! You can wish that all you like! Why the hell not? But you don’t get to pelt me day after day with criticism that falls apart easier than a card castle as soon as I take a look at what I wrote in the story, only to then pick ANOTHER quote, OUT OF CONTEXT, to once again present your case of why this is just wrong and bad and not written the way you want it to be.

I’ve received legitimate, valid criticism of many aspects of Gladiator. I always ended up feeling pretty bad after, but the valid ones? I realized, even if it hurt, that they were true. That some of that made sense. That, if I got to write this story all over again, I probably should fix those details and not get overwhelmed by my excitement to get to the meat of the story, which is why some developments of the introduction arc are so rushed compared to everything else. It was my inexperience, my mistake. I’ve made mistakes later on too, and I’ve taken note of them as well, despite I’m doing my best to incorporate them into the story as seamlessly as possible so that they even tie in with canon fairly well. In short, I don’t believe Gladiator is perfect, and sometimes when people tell me as much? I know they’re right. I take what I can from that, and learn from it, if possible.

But this? The criticism I’ve received for 28, and for Sokka’s past, is 100% subjective, CONSTANTLY. I’ve never read any that genuinely makes me go “oh well that’s a good point, maybe it’s OOC or maybe I could’ve done it differently to the exact same results without the same elements”. It’s always, to varying degrees, “I hate that you’re writing for one specific ship but allowed one member of the ship to have experiences with other people before he really got together with his one true love and I’m going to pester you about it until I finally get bored of making you rant and ramble for hours to no avail because I won’t listen to anything you say”.

So, yes. I feel justified in lashing right back at you for the backlash. Because this isn’t just you, it’s a lot of people, like you said! And you’re ALL free to hate what happened, I’ve never said you have to like it and I never will. But if you’re going to criticize? You’re open for criticism too. Fact is, if you wanted to actually talk about this properly? You’d get off anon and we’d have (I hope) a decent conversation via messaging about ALL that bothers you about this story. I’d even be a thousand times more civil than I have been so far! And why would I act so differently? Because you’re an anon. Because you’re HIDING. And from the shadows, you toss all this criticism at me and then whine because I don’t like it. Well, own up to your own shit too, Anon. If you wanted a real debate, if you had the ARGUMENTS for a real debate, we could have one just fine. But you don’t. And if you get the privilege of anonymity, I get the privilege of speaking my mind with zero regard of your feelings, because that’s basically how you, and all the anons I’ve quoted (whether they’re you or anyone else) have behaved as so far.

Yes, I write, and I post what I write online, which leaves the gateway open for criticism for sure. 

It doesn’t give you the right to be this persistent of an asshole to the point of saying I have no right to be annoyed by your questions. You don’t have the slightest idea of how much work I’ve put into Gladiator for the past seven years. You don’t have the slightest grasp of character development if you don’t understand THAT is what’s been happening with Sokka all along. And you don’t get to decide how I feel about your asks, or anyone else’s.

You can send another ask about ANYTHING regarding this subject, be it my inability to handle “criticism”, or chapter 28, or chapters 111-112 and their respective revelations about Sokka’s past, or your presumed belief that Sokka will be with a thousand women despite he’s completely committed to Azula by now... but this time I mean it: YOU’RE NOT GETTING ANOTHER ANSWER OUT OF ME. I’ve had it. This is the last straw. I’m done discussing this subject, and I’ll outright change my askbox’s message for you to remember that if you try to pull this again.

Now then. Can I finally go back to working on my story, or must I continue to invest HOURS of my day spelling out all the writing decisions I’ve made that you can’t make your peace with?

Please, Anon: get over it. If you can’t, stop reading. You’ll be happier that way. And so will I. I’m in no place, emotionally, for this kind of BS on my inbox all the damn time. Give me a goddamn break if you truly have any respect for what I do.

[kingdomofthelogos]

The Temptation of Gethsemane

The prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane teaches us how we are to act in the face of mortal danger. Jesus has a choice to make in this moment, and we are blessed with a glimpse of His perseverance. Jesus can either endure the painful victory that will be pinnacle of the adventure of holiness, or, He can entertain the temptation of pushing the cup aside and end His mission to defeat death.

Of course, Jesus did not reject the cup before Him. We should never sanitize the Gospel and believe that it was an exercise in passivity, where all danger and conflict was avoided. Jesus came to overcome the ultimate conflict between life and death, not to run away from it.

As Christians we must pay very close attention to this moment, for this is the question of how we deal with suffering and with fear. Jesus’ actions in the Garden of Gethsemane gives us an example of how we should compose ourselves in the face of danger. Moreover, these final moments before His arrest remind us of the true purpose of the Gospel.

Matthew 26:36-45

Matthew 26:36 Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” 37 He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. 38 Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”

39 Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”

40 Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Couldn’t you men keep watch with me for one hour?” he asked Peter. 41 “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”  

42 He went away a second time and prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.”

43 When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. 44 So he left them and went away once more and prayed the third time, saying the same thing.

45 Then he returned to the disciples and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Look, the hour has come, and the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners. 46 Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer!”

Adam and Eve stepped out of the garden of Eden in delinquency. They were entering a world of death where they might live with their sin. Yet, God did not leave them forsaken, for He fashioned for them skins to wear as clothing. This act gave them protection that they had neither the power nor understanding to make for themselves. They were cast out, but hardly forgotten.

God still had a grand adventure in store for Adam and Eve. He would continue to love them, even as they were maimed and tainted. His hand would guide their children through tragedy and hardship. He would watch in agony as these pitiful creatures would perpetuate lies, murder, and all forms of wickedness. However, God would neither forget nor uncreate His creation, despite the wickedness that had infected their hearts.

Jesus, too, stood in a garden knowing that death was waiting outside. Beyond the beautiful confines of the garden was the hideous reality of death. Death, a matter that was uninvited to creation, awaited Jesus with its hungry snarling, desiring to consume Him, to feel His skin tear in its claws and to hear His bones crunch in its teeth.  The craven nature of sin and death was waiting outside the garden like the unsatisfied monster it was, excited for the kill, that it, the uncreated, might taste the blood of God as it devoured Him.

The cup that sat before Jesus was not a cup of beauty. It was not a holy grail to be resounded through legends as cup of great desire. Rather, this cup was a necessary cup that held two things at once. In this cup was death in its fullness, it contained the mortal poison that had been fabricated by every hand of humanity. At the same time this cup held hope; moreover, it held the only true hope of life that could ever be found for mankind. This cup held both endless death in its ugly fullness and eternal life in its beautiful truth. Only Jesus could drink the cup.

Where Adam was forced out of the garden of Eden by his own sins, Jesus was now being beckoned out of His garden of Gethsemane by the sins of others. Death was waiting for God the Son, but death did not know what power Jesus had. For death was about to be defeated.

God did not come to this earth that He might avoid danger, that He might be guided by fear or suffering. Christians are not called by our Creator to live in opposition to His Image. God did not teach us the value of laying down one’s live for another that we might kill our children, or retreat from a threat when it calls out our name. God did not set aside time to be born as a child and wait the long patient years of maturing that we might prioritize our own desires and ambitions above others.

Jesus actually was the conqueror that the Jewish people had waited for, however, His conquest was grander than the fickle ambitions of earthly kingdoms. The scope of His conquest was of eternal magnitude, not the few decades that an earthly king might rule. Jesus came to conquer death.

We should never whitewash the Gospel and think that it was an exercise in passivity where all conflict was avoided. Again, the Gospel was not an exercise in passivity where all conflict and danger was avoided. We are all called to rise to the occasion of being strong Christian men and women who set our eyes on the call of God and march forth without fear of death. The Way of Life, the adventure of holiness, is surrounded by many wicked and unjust things that reach out to us and invite us to rest with them, but we must not, we must carry on with righteous living.

The Return of the Devil?

The devil left Jesus in the wilderness to return to Him later at an opportune time. Here in the Garden of Gethsemane we find Jesus praying to the Father on behalf of the cup that is before Him. Is this the return of the tempter? To forsake the cup of crucifixion is a much more viable temptation than jumping from the heights above Jerusalem or bowing down to the diabolical one. 

The tempter was set to return at an opportune time, and what could be more of an opportune time than when you are dwelling in a garden while death is waiting outside? Death thinks it wants to consume Him, so that it can have the supreme victory where death consumes all. However, Jesus knows something that death does not. Enduring death and defeating it is the path to eternal life and Jesus is the only one capable of achieving that victory. The tempter does not want Jesus to have this victory, the tempter wants Him to push the hideous cup aside and carry on with human life as it is.

One of the great accusations made against the church is that it is merely psychological medicine to help people cope with fear and suffering. These lines of attack always originate from forces that hate the church, and do not want the truth of her mission to be known. The church’s mission is to persevere through suffering, not avoid it. The tempter is always looking for an angle to attack the church and to hide the radiating illumination of the Gospel. We should guard ourselves against the unchristian folly that believes the church is meant to be passive and avoid danger whenever we are faced with something to fear. This is not how Jesus behaved, and we are only giving a victory to the tempter when we hold to unchristian beliefs.

Returning to our text we can find an interesting shift between the first and second prayer of Jesus that night. In the first Jesus asks “my Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” In the second prayer Jesus says “my Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.” Jesus knows the only path forward is to endure the cup.

Rising in the Face of Danger

We often want to avoid danger in life, but we must put on the Christlikeness that is commanded of us and rise to the occasion. We must not shy away from the path of righteousness, regardless of whether or not it is convenient, and even if it means the end. Jesus’ time in the garden was not an exercise in passivity, where He chose to avoid danger. Rather, it was a time of preparation, where He communed with the Father as to what He should do.

Whenever we are faced with danger and difficulty, we should have an impulse to make sure we are right with God. Jesus prays before stepping out of the garden and taking the cup. Jesus’ entire life is structured around fulfilling the will of the Father. Our lives must likewise be structured around doing the will of God.

If we give into fear and grant it too much attention, then we are giving a victory to the tempter. Jesus did not die on across as an example of passivity; rather, He stood before death ready to endure its pain so that He might destroy it. The Gospel does not leave us with a dead Lord, but rather an empty tomb. Victory was found over death, and that victory was only possible because Jesus was willing to take the cup.

The gospel is neither desperate nor depressed. It is aspirational with the power to bring hope to all humanity. The forces of evil try to hide the radiating light of the Gospel from nonbelievers, but the power of God is all powerful. May God gives us strength in all that we do.

[is-the-owl-video-cute]

By popular request, I will share the images sent to me about this matter as was discussed in ramseys discord. It will be under the cut due to graphic imagery, extreme animal abuse/maiming, and just about what you would expect really. The only thing I will post above the cut is the Instagram of the only one of the duo whose social media I know of so you can avoid and block him. I do not have instagram myself, but I know many of you do and I don’t want anyone accidentally following an animal abuser just because he sometimes posts cute animals.

I’m sure it doesn’t need to even be said, but since the man breeds birds, do not buy any birds from him and do not commission any art from him either.

This is a second warning, do NOT click on the read more if you are sensitive to images of gravely injured or abused animals.

Everything about this ”procedure” horrifies me. This is quite literally what I would expect from a horror movie. The fact that they left the wound open with the bone sticking out is horrific. Anyone with ten minutes of vet school should know that you do NOT leave an exposed bone, you are only to amputate if you have enough tissue left to suture shut. Using rubber bands to do a back alley tourniquet and then cutting the wing off with kitchen shears is ghastly. I gagged several times reading this because it goes against everything you are taught in animal medicine. There is no precision or care in using a pair of glorified scissors. There is no damage control. There is no careful evaluation of what can and cannot be saved. The only wings I cut off with kitchen shears are the wings of dead quail that I’m prepping as raptor food.

If it weren’t obvious from the start, allow me to emphasize the above once again. This was done without any form of anesthesia. Not even topical. The bird was wide awake and felt every second of it. The fact they went in a few days later and cut off more of the (almost certainly infected and necrotic) bone while the bird was awake is just sick.

The argument these two make that it would have been somehow unfair to euthanize the bird for a mistake that wasn’t the bird’s fault sickens me to my core. The very idea that it was more kind to torture this animal than let it pass or simply push a gofundme campaign has brought me closer to violence than anything I have ever seen in all my years in avian rehab.

I do think it is unfair to say that Ramsey herself endorsed this as she had originally not read that no vets were involved in the procedure and upon realizing that was horrified. I do think she was too lenient and understanding about something this horrific, but I also can’t say that this was something she was in support of.

Edit: nope, she knew the whole time. Everything in these comments including her false-horror were only added at all because her moderation team pushed for her to speak against it and the reason it was left up was that she thought it would be ”helpful” for others who couldn’t get to a vet. So much for benefit of the doubt. End edit. That being said, the fact she boasts herself as an experienced pigeon rehabber but doesn’t know how to do figure of 8 wing wraps or body wraps to stabilize a fracture and instead thinks the only options are amputation or leaving it to hang unwrapped and hope for the best vexes me.

That all aside, the bird was never spoken of again after this and it is very likely that it died of infection due to the fact the open bone was left exposed so long it was able to dry out and start to die. Necrotic bones lead to blood poisoning which of course leads to death.

Do you know about the DIY amputation (no anesthesia, and done with shears over two days due to left over bone fragments) that happened in TRL house server? It's pretty graphic and horrible.

TRL let it stay up in the server for years (supposedly for educational purposes) and let the people stay who abused the bird, she also allowed them to try and rehome the bird they did "surgery" on in her server.

I did see that, yes. It was the most disgusting acts of animal abuse that I have ever seen and I have nothing but pure animosity for those responsible for what happened to that bird

[lafaiette]

Hi Lafaiette ^^ May I give you a prompt for Rydaal? Havaarl is wild and dangerous, while fighting, a venenous plant pintches Ryder and Jaal has to suck the venom out when she passes out. Might that be during fighting or after is up to you. I love reading the codex, so fascinating! I hope you like it :)

Sorry for the late answer, Anon! I wanted to write Jaal and my Rydermore before filling a prompt to be sure to write them in character - also myhealth kind of sucks right now, so I’m slower than usual ;_;

This was a lovely prompt, I hope you will likeit!

Note: I don’t know anything about poisons and the correct way to do this (is there even a correct way?), so bear with me. ;_; Let’s pretend it’s more Space Magic™!

Jaal warned them some of the plants and leaves on Havarl were dangerous,but they never encountered them until now.

The Roekkar are not as strong as before and their numbers have greatlydecreased too, but they still patrol the jungle, looking for more aliens tokill, hoping to follow Akksul’s teachings even now that he isn’t leading themanymore.

It’s during one of these skirmishes that Ryder discovers how painful theplants of Havarl can be for the first time.

A sniper successfully hit her arm, damaging a part of her armor there tothe point it fell on the ground, leaving her forearm bare; at first, she doesn’tthink about it too much, too busy defending herself from the other enemies, butSAM quickly reminds her to be careful.

“A direct hit to your arm would have disastrous consequences,Pathfinder. I suggest killing the sniper before he can maim you.”

“Oh, God, SAM.” she grimaces, ducking behind some boxes when a bullethisses through the air right above her head. “That’s a terrible mental image.”

“Yet it’s a very possible one.”

“Humans are so squishy!” Drack roars with laughter while smashing hishammer down a poor Roekkar’s back, killing her instantly. “They don’t even haveplates to protect them when they don’t have an armor on!”

“It’s not our fault evolution forgot about us!” she shouts back, playingalong, and Drack’s laugh echoes louder. He swings his hammer left and right,not even caring about the bullets, and she feels bad for the Roekkar, flinchingevery time the massive krogan weapon hits one.

After shooting at one with her sniper rifle, making sure to kill himinstantly to avoid any pain, she turns to where Jaal is: he is fighting as hardas her and Drack, without hesitation, with their same focus and energy, but sheknows it must be pretty hard for him to still fight his own people.

Even if Akksul’s madness has been revealed and his group has lost muchpower and influence, making Jaal feel immensely better, she prays they will all stop fighting one day; she praysthat the Roekkar as a faction will disappear, as these angara finally start tolet go of their hatred and allow themselves to hope again.

The sniper who broke her arm armor is perfectly aware of herdisadvantage and tries to hit her again; she keeps hiding behind the crates,moving closer to a glowing bush without even paying attention to it.

“Darling One!” Jaal shouts from behind a tree. “Don’t move!”

“Don’t worry, I got this!” she replies, grinning at him before steppingback, closer and closer to the bush; if she can hide between it and the crate,she will be able to shoot at the sniper without being hit again.

There is just the perfect space between one crate and the largest, mostshining leaves of the bush that will allow her bullet to pass through. Sheknows the sniper expect her head to pop out from behind the crate, right at thecenter of it, and that’s where he is expecting her next shot to come from.

If she’s lucky, she will take him by surprise and finally get rid of him– in the least painful way.

“No!” Jaal shouts again, moving to reach her, but she doesn’t hear himand she crouches right next to the bush, putting her rifle in position.

Her bare arm touches the large leaf and she distractedly feels a painfulburn on it, but there is so much going around her – the sniper shooting abovethe crate again, Drack roaring at some poor Roekkar, Jaal yelling somethingagain above all the noise – that she doesn’t think too much about it.

She sees the sniper’s head through the scope: she aims, breathing in andout a couple of times to stop her hands from moving too much, and then sheshoots: one second later, the sniper lies dead on the ground, a clear bulletwound on his head.

Drack takes care of the last two Roekkar, while Jaal runs to Ryder, eyeswide and chest heaving, not with tiredness, but panic.

“I’m alright, honey! The sniper didn’t hit me!” she laughs, getting up…but her head suddenly feels very heavy and everything around her turns into an indistinctblur. She babbles something and Jaal’s strong arms keep her up, pulling her intoa safe embrace.

“Darling One. Let me see your arm.” he says, helping her sit on top of acrate. He hisses and curses something in Shelesh when he sees the reddenedskin.

Some weird green tendrils are appearing, growing, on top of thered spot, too; they seem full of something– probably a liquid - and Ryder lets out a gasp.

“Uh-oh.”

“Pathfinder, I detect a powerful toxin. If it enters your bloodstream,the effects would be dangerous, possibly even fatal. I’m not sure I would beable to fight it without knowing more about it and the plant that produces it.”

“And… and how much time would that take?”

“Studying the plant, its toxin, the effects it has on humans, and tryingto come up with a cure would require more time than we currently have.” SAMdoesn’t often sound impatient and he neversounds scared, but she is pretty sure she can hear fear in his syntheticvoice right now.

“Shit, Ryder. Why do you always have to touch everything?” Drackgrumbles, his hammer and front of his armor covered in blue blood.

“I… I didn’t do it on purpose!” she slurs, her head getting heavier bythe second. Her tongue feels swollen and her arm is starting to burn way toomuch for her tastes. It itches and she wants to scratches it, but she knowsthat if those tendrils rupture, the venom will enter her skin, then herbloodstream; it will make its way through her body and then she will probablydie, this time with no hope of being brought back by SAM.

“That is not a dangerous plant for angara.” Jaal says, voice low, handsshaking, eyes dark with worry and fear. “It just gives us a bad rash, so everyoneborn on Havarl learns to recognize it and avoid it since from their early yearsof life.”

“What…” She licks her lips, suddenly feeling very hot. She is prettysure she has a bad fever. “What do you do if you accidentally touch it?”

“We use our bioelectricity to burn the spores before the rash getsworse.” Jaal’s hands hover over her arm, but he doesn’t dare touch it. They areshaking harder than before and he looks on the verge of tears. “But… But Inever saw this before. It doesn’t affect us this way.”

“Well, fuck.” Drack narrows his eyes at the green tendrils, which seemto be getting bigger, fuller of liquid. He glances at Ryder, who is shivering,eyes bleary, and he curses again.

“Guys, this is bad. We need to go back to the Tempest and let Lexi takecare of this.”

“That would not be advisable.” SAM intervenes. “Even the smallest touchor movement may break the tendrils. In that case, the venom would penetrate theskin and…”

“We get it, SAM.” Jaal interrupts him, breathing heavily. He looks atRyder, who can still keep her eyes open, and he chokes on a sob. “Chloe…”

“Let’s cut the arm.” Drack suddenly suggests, causing Jaal and Ryder togawk at him as if he has gone mad. “What? It’s the best solution! This way thepoison will never enter your body!”

“Yeah, but I’ll lose an arm!”

“Yeah, but you will survive.”

“Debatable. The severe bloodloss or a possible infection may kill her.” SAMquickly says before Drack can proceed with his idea.

“Back in my time, losing limbs wasn’t such a big deal! Youngsters havegotten way too much soft.”

“We have to do something!” Jaal nearly roars, causing Ryder to flinchbecause of the loud noise. He tries to calm down and he gingerly cradles herwet face in his hands, resting his forehead against hers.

“Chloe, my Darling One.” he murmurs, stroking her cheeks with histhumbs. “Do you trust me?”

“What?” She frowns, thinking she heard it wrong, but then she realizesshe hears him perfectly well. “Of course I do, Jaal! What…”

“Then let me do this.”

He pulls away and slowly, as most delicately as he can, he takes her armand raises it, studying the fat tendrils pulsing on it.

“What are you doing, kid?” Drack asks, tensing up, a hint of concern inhis old voice.

“I’m going to suck the poison.”

“What.”

“Shit, kid.”

“Mr. Ama Darav, are you…”

“It’s the only way! We can’t bring her back to the Tempest in this stateand we cannot waste more time here! We have to do something now!”

“Jaal, you will get hurt!” She tries to pull away her arm, but his graspis iron-like and she is too weak to try again. “Jaal, please!”

“It’s not poisonous for angara.” he reminds her with a smile, kissingher, before looking back at the wound. The skin is crimson and shiny, now, andthe tendrils are going to rupture soon.

“Alright, but it’s still some pretty bad shit! Who knows what it coulddo to your mouth.” she insists,shaking her head. “Normally, the plant just gives angara a rash, right? So younever even got in contact with this liquid before, what if…”

“My sensors indicate that the poisonous liquid is just the step thatfollows the rash, Pathfinder. This means it remains harmless to angaranphysiology.”

“SAM, stop! Don’t give him ideas!”

“It’s settled, then.” Jaal smiles at her again, then observes theaffected area on her arm. It’s small enough for his mouth to cover it whole, sohe won’t miss even one tendril. He will have to be fast and precise, but thoseare skills he always had.

Also, if it meant saving his Darling One’s life, he would even find a wayto catch all the stars in the sky.

He licks his lips, takes a deep breath, and then opens his mouth,bringing Ryder’s arm to it. The tendrils immediately break, but he is able tosuck the poison before it can fully penetrate into her skin.

He also uses tiny electrical shocks to make sure to eliminate everytrace of it and burn what remains of the tendrils, then he pulls away and spitsthe poison on the ground: it’s viscous, much dense, and it has a bitter taste.His tongue is already burning, but he doesn’t care.

He goes back to her arm, repeating the process twice before SAM informshim that all the poison has been eliminated from Ryder’s skin and that hesuccessfully stopped it from seeping through it.

“The liquid’s thickness prevented it from entering your body instantly,Ryder.” the AI says, before adding softly: “Mr. Ama Darav did a great job.”

She looks at her arm: the skin is still red, but the tendrils are goneand just the signs they left on her skin are visible. It doesn’t burn and itchlike before and she lets out a relieved sigh, before looking at Jaal, who iseven more relieved than she is.

He is beaming at her and she cups his cheek, murmuring with tears in hereyes: “Oh, Jaal, thank you, I…”

She moves to kiss him, but he gently stops her, grimacing.

“No, my love.” His voice sounds strange, as if he’s speaking with apotato in his mouth. “I need to wash my mouth first.”

“I suggest going back to the Tempest immediately.” SAM says. “Ryderneeds medical help and Mr. Ama Darav…”

Jaal grunts in pain, covering his mouth with a hand while wincing.

“I think Jaal needs it too.” Drack cackles, patting the angara’s back.

- - - -

“I can’t believe you were so reckless!”Lexi hisses, smashing keys on her omnitool, probably pretending those are Ryder’sand Jaal’s heads. “Touching alien plants, sucking poison, all without even contacting me!”

“There was no time to-” Jaal starts, still sounding like his mouth isfull of cotton, but he gets quiet when Lexi shoots him a glare.

“I’m sorry, Jaal.” Chloe says from her bed, looking at him with sadeyes. “I didn’t understand what you were trying to tell me during the fight.”

“Darling One, I’m fine!” he chuckles. “What most matters is that you arehere, safe and sound.”

Even if his voice still sounds funny, at least he can talk now and histongue isn’t as swollen as before. It also stopped burning, thanks to Lexi’smedications.

He moves to get up from his bed and join Chloe, but Lexi’s glare stopshim again.

“You will stay here for the whole night.” she orders, causing Ryder togroan and Jaal to huff. “And no kissing! There might still be traces of poisonleft on Jaal’s tongue.”

“No kissing?” he gasps, shock in his eyes. Chloe asks in a little voice,already missing him: “For how long?”

“For at least two days. The rash should be gone by then.” Lexi’s glareis frightening as she points at them. “I’ll keep an eye on you. And SAM will stopyou if you even try to share the most chaste of kisses.”

Chloe falls back on her bed, groaning again, while Jaal lets out whatsounds like a tiny sniffle.

“Can we at least sleep in the same bed?” she asks, hopeful, and he nodsquickly, but their puppy eyes are punctually ignored by the asari, who sits ather desk and replies flatly: “Absolutely not. I don’t want to find you dead tomorrowmorning, Ryder.”

That convinces Jaal this is actually necessary and he turns to hisDarling One with a soft smile.

“She’s right, my love. Let’s be strong for a little more. Our nextkisses will taste even sweeter.”

Chloe sighs, but nods; then she lightens up and slowly gets up, watchingLexi in case she notices her movements.

The asari is too busy reading the data of the plant and poison SAMcollected and she doesn’t see her, so Chloe moves next to Jaal’s bed andwhispers: “You can’t kiss me yet, but I cankiss you.”

And then she presses her lips on his forehead, putting all her love andgratefulness into it. Jaal understands the meaning behind her kiss and beams ather, cupping her cheek with a hand.

Chloe kisses his palm, too, but this time the kiss is louder and Lexigasps, horrified, getting up from her seat at the speed of light.

“Bed, now!” she growls,pointing at the empty bed and Chloe rushes to it, sticking out her tongue ather before smiling lovingly at Jaal, who is watching her with awed eyes.

“This will be a terribly long night.” Lexi sobs, pinching the bridge ofher nose. Just then, Drack walks in front of the open door and bursts into hisroaring laugh, hands on his hips.

“Let the kids have fun, doc!”

“You.” The asari marches tohim with a glowering face and even if Drack is never scared, right now he looksready to bolt out of the ship. “You skipped threeappointments!”

“I…”

“Enter!” Lexi points at the room. “Now.”

“But…”

She flexes her finger and it would look hilarious if she wasn’t sofurious. Drack clears his throat and steps into the Med Bay, mumbling: “Colorme impressed and aroused, doc.”

Lexi scoffs, stomping towards her desk, but there is a cute blush on hercheeks now and Chloe and Jaal smile at the couple, touched by the gentle wayDrack speaks to Lexi and the sweet way she replies to him.

Then Chloe seizes the chance and jumps into Jaal’s bed, sighing happilywhen he wraps his arms around her; they aren’t going to kiss, but she definitelycan pepper his face with kisses and his hands can definitely pet her hair and face without problems.

Lexi gives them the flattest, most unimpressed expression they ever saw,but then she relents and leaves them alone, focusing back on Drack.

“Good idea, doc.” he grins, nodding at the adorable couple. “Always letthe kids have fun!”