#I know it’s not an easy job ;; but compassion and kindness they go a long way

[pixlokita]

I was crying from pain at the emergency room and the nurses were bitching about me not dying so they couldn’t help right away even if I kept passing out and had been there for a long time, this sweet old Russian lady who was also admitted since earlier stood up and walked next to me and kept comforting me and asking how I was holding up, she kept checking in on me and being so sweet and going around asking if everyone was doing ok or just distracting family members of patients with nice conversations. She called out the doctors and nurses for not caring, she sat next to me and kept making sure I was ok and then gave me her phone number when she got discharged so I’d follow up with her. Honestly my day coulda been hell today but this one lady made it so bearable it’s not going to be remembered as a bad horrible traumatizing time, I got to meet an actual angel and I’m so happy about it.

[yey56]

HARLEY SAWYER X PSYCHOLOGIST READER (morally grey)

You have been working at Playtime CO for some years now, you worked as the head department of psychology but most of your work consisted on providing profiles of the children in the lower levels or as your coworker called them, experiments.

Over the years of working with them and knowing what they are being turned into, you've learned to work with them pre and post experimentation. Another thing you've learned through time was to deal with the partner you were assigned for the project. Harley sawyer.

What is there to say about that man. He is the head scientist in the project but he is absolutely horrible at dealing with them, or with anyone. That's how you were assigned to work along side him . He made the experiments and you maintained them under control.

Initially the ones who needed to be under control where you two because of your crashing personalities. While he was a serious control freak and borderline antisocial you one the contrary seemed to not take things seriously, constantly taunting him and the other stuff and with a permanent sarcastic tone in your voice voice.

Of course at first he didn't like you much, and to be fair you didn't make it easy. Everything he said refering to the experiments was refuted by your obsession to keep a mildly stable mental health in the subject.

Dr Harley sighed heavily looking your way with an annoyed look- What now?- he asked

If you keep treating the subjects like that your are going to break them.-you said in the observation room with him while you were both supervising experiment 1355, a young girl turned into a smiley unicorn.

They're toys, they can be fixed easily- he responded as if he had repeated you that phrase for the 11th time (he did)

You know what I mean Sawyer, they are of no use if their minds break-you explained with a calm smile- or have you forgotten what kind of problems an unstable subject could bring?- your asked him, your question mocking him.

It turned out well with Yarnaby or have you forgotten Dr (Y/L/N)?- he said imitating your question

You laughed slowly- ah yes the kid you isolated as your pet, great example Dr-

Harley Sawyer was well known for working alone, he didn't like others company and whenever he got an assistant or a guard, he scared them off by being authoritarian or exposing them to dangerous situation. You were the only one at the company who actually could keep up with him.

In the interviews with the children you would lead the conversation while Harley observed and took notes. In the laboratory you were more of an assistant, helping the Dr with whatever tool he needed or just preparing the chemicals.

Even though he hated to admit it, his experiments have been more controlable and causing less troubles since you started working together.

You would be unbothered by the kids, showing enough compassion for them to not recognise you as a threat, but showing not an ounce of regret in your eyes while seeing how Harley turned them into toys.

Do I have to remind you that compassion is useless in this job?- Sawyer said while closing a wound he had made on the experiment while operating

You haven't realised how much time have passed since your prior conversation have ended. It was strange for the doctor to initiate them, usually preferring silence but you weren't complaining.

Compassion can make a person go through great lengths- you said- But I understand that in this line of work it's nothing but a limit, a wall that needs to be broken in order to obtain results.-

For once in a long time both you and Harley agreed on something.

He finally stopped sewing the toys fresh wound and started reading the inform you had redacted about the psychological profile of the child before the operation- you should do another one once she wakes up (Y/L/N)- he reminded you while reading the little notes and highlights you left about her.

You always reserved a space the paper work to express your personal opinions on the experiment and Harley always read them. It's another thing he started doing, considering your opinions and advice as something worth of noticing.

-Doc...-

-Sawyer...-

-Sawyer??...-

-HARLEY!!-

He looked at you not noticing how he had spaced out of his mind for a moment while reading your report.

What is it?- he asked actually surprised that he was actually distracted enough to not hear you.

I was asking you about the experiment 1322, Doey. How are the three conscience developing? are they getting used to they're new body?-you asked. Doey was your favourite experiment so far, it was the one you have showed more interest in and your involvement with him was way bigger than with others. Sawyer didn't understood your fascination with Doey.

Since you both started developing the project, you had shown special interest in the idea of three people combined in a toy. In fact, the reason you had starting working more time with the doctor was because of your eagerness to see how the experiment would turn out.

You have become much more comfortable with one another, even after years of coexisting with each other in the lower levels of Playtime.

Sometimes he would catch himself looking at you while you were with the kids in the interviews. He observed your calm demeanor through the crystal of the observation room. He could see how the children grew more confortable with you while you were joking.

The cognitive abilities of the toys were improving each day thanks to your work so of course the bosses permitted you both to perform as many experiments as needed.

Another thing Harley noticed about the last week's was how you would spend most of your time testing and conversing with 1322. He had grown so used to your presence that it was getting harder to work without you present.

He would never admit that he missed your sarcastic comments about the designs of the toys or how he missed to call you a germ, his germ, whenever you were getting to annoying.

Sometimes when you went to the cafeteria upstairs to get some coffee or a sandwich to eat, you would get him something too.

You haven't brought anything recently and that was because of your new obsession.

He finally finished the last transformation successfully, now the only thing left was for the experiment to wake up and for you to examine them.

Harley wandered through the corridors searching for the one room he knew you would be in, this time, he was the one bringing you a coffee.

He watched you through the crystal of the observation room. You always insisted on talking face to face with Doey. The mass of doe seemed calmer with you around. The two more peaceful personalities of Doey talked to you, voicing their regrets and fears. Though the violent part of the creature always seemed reluctant to talk to you. Not responding what was asked of him or simply not responding at all.

Dr ( Y/L/N), your presence is required in the observation room number 29- Sawyer interrupted your conversation. Doey seemed afraid for a moment only to turn his expression into an angry one. With a gesture of your hand you calmed him down and signaled silently for Harley to turn on the ice so the doe wouldn't scape.

You exited the room to find your coworker handing you a cup of coffee. You looked at him with a raised brow but accepted it either way.

Well, look who it is.-you said with satisfied grin- I thought you were supervising Yarnaby?- you commented

Yes I was, are you aware of how much time you spend with that... Mass?- he said with contempt- what's so fascinating about him anyways? He's only been trouble.

You're only trouble as far as I'm aware- he rolled his eyes you sipped again- he's a time bomb and I want to be there to see it explode- you finally responded- I want to be the germ that makes him mutate.

Germ... It's a fitting name for you- he laughed with a smooth voice.-

You both stayed silent in the middle of the room, he looked at you calmly while you ended your coffee. He was looking at you trough his glasses without blinking, with his tired eyes.

You looked back at him and when you realised he had his fist raised at you, brushing with his tumb the remaining coffee right next to your upper lip.

Neither of you realised how close you where, the dim light of the room illuminated both of your bodies. Yours against the door and his right in front of you, your external layers of clothing touching lightly.

He got even closer, feeling his breath against your own. His thumb caressing your cheek

He thought about everything that had happened recently. How Pierre and the ones closer to him had started to go against you both in the semanal meeting with the executives regarding the experiments. Pierre's demands being met by your indifference, claiming that you will keep securing the experiments as much as possible.

The doctor remembered how you, just as him, were completely devoted to the project. He had became paranoic for the past months. More irritable, unwilling to socialise with someone who wasn't you or the toys

He got even closer to you, he though he heard you whisper his name. You closed the gap between the both of you. Hands on his shoulders

Lip against lip, his hand still in your face. You felt that Harley was the only human you could trust down here. No one understood you like he did. Your desperation to contribute to humanity, your desire of achieving a more lasting body. One that could endure more.

If you ever shared this with anyone else, you'll probably be in trouble.

Your closeness with Harley and his with you was out of understanding, a feeling of trust and comfortability that had just materialised thought he kiss you were sharing with each other.

He slowly pulled apart, his breathing uneven and one of his locks of hair misplaced a slight smile on his face. His forehead touched yours and he whispered just above your lips- My germ~

Only if you knew... That exact same day Harley Sawyer would be reduce no nothing more than a system, a screen, a conscience.

At the mercy of playtimes desires while you... Well ... Your whereabouts were unknown, even though they knew you didn't get out of the building.

Somewhere... hiding between wires and toy corpses...

I'm in love with the voice of the doctor AKA Harley Sawyer.

My drawing of Harley Sawyer:

[quijotine]

OK OK I FINISHED BINGING THE ENTIRETY OF NATLA AND I GOTTA SAY IT WAS A GREAT ADAPTATION!!!

Here are my thoughts so far:

The parts where I still had my reservations for the first half were definitely addressed in the second. There were more Kataang beats, especially in the last three episodes.

Please that whole part before the zutara showdown where Aang goes like "go easy, enough ppl have suffered" and zuko is more or less like "lol it's cute u think i'd hold back" and then aang has this proud little smirk like "oh i wasn’t talking to you"😏 Also his proud little smirk when Katara is fighting Pakku PLEASE HE IS GOING TO BE THE PROUDEST BF

They covered the most important points and had a decent few scenes of fan service, loved that.

However, the adaptation is not perfect and there are definitely parts that were lacking, at least to me. Primarily, I think they did our girl Katara a little dirty not emphasizing as much on her arc as opposed to Sokka's, for example, and also the way her ascension to master was pretty telly instead of showy

There was definitely something to love in every episode, but I think the weakest ones have to be Omashu and Spirited Away.

My ABSOULUTE FAVORITE episodes were Into the Dark and Masks. Dallas, Paul, and Gordon did SUCH a great job in them. I cannot WAIT for the proper leaves from the vine scene and also to have more of zuko interacting with aang.

ZUKO IS BABY BOY AND DOES NOT KNOW ANYTHING NOT EVEN ABCs 🥺🥺🥺

My favorite was Zuko by far, yes. I think the performance and the was he was written struck the best balance of that goofiness and tragedy atla is originally known for. That’s not to say the other kids didn't do a good job, but Dallas' Zuko was by far the best imo

I understand now what the showrunners meant by making the show more mature and serious. I cannot say I didn't like it, but I can see it being an acquired taste especially for the part of the fandom that is more purist/demanding. I like that the focus emphasized more on the consequences of war and that it reflected on the cycles of violence and hurt, what they do to a person and how the wounds pass down generationally. I think this emphasis on war, compassion, kindness, all those things are definitely an important message in this time and day. However, it is a little too serious for my taste, PRECISELY because of the times we are living in. Back when the OG came about the world was in a time of relative peace. But now we get pictures of carnage and genocide mixed in with videos of cute puppies, so it's definitely a different place. It was much easier to understand the gravity of the genocidal/bombing scenes imo, almost to a point that they seemed watered down/kid friendly compared to the real thing that we see on our phones everyday. Because of that, I think erring more on the comedy, the balance between what it ACTUALLY means to be hopeful and not just talking about it, is the one thing the show could improve upon for next seasons.

All in all I am VERY pleased with the adaptation. There were moments where I definitely bawled my eyes out, shouted, and laughed the same way I did the first time I watched the show. All I can say is, for those still on the fence about watching it, so long as you go in with an open mind and with the explicit objective of enjoying yourself, it will be a fun watch.

[rejectedfables]

rewatching House MD, and s1ep10 "Histories" is just such a masterpiece in crafting empathy for the unhoused, and it's striking me how much I miss characters who are allowed to be complicated and messy and deeply flawed even WHILE they impart a heavy-handed lesson to the audience. And how much more effective those lessons are when said characters ARE complicated and messy and deeply flawed.

In the episode, a homeless woman is brought to the ED, and House, Foreman, and Wilson clash over how to handle it. Wilson is immediately invested, Foreman is immediately dismissive, and House's interest in the case is piqued by wanting to learn why Foreman hates homeless people.

Foreman, who's perspective is the least sympathetic but the most like how the average irl person perceives and responds to unhoused people, is never given a backstory justification for his views. House assumes he's angry at an unhoused loved one, or perhaps he's just a snob, but the audience learns that Foreman's instinct to distrust Victoria was correct; she WAS trying to manipulate the system. AND she is also extremely ill. Foreman is merely forced, against his will, to observe her pain until he cannot ignore it anymore. He is dragged to empathy and compassion and emotional investment in her wellbeing, and he is rewarded with a lesson he will never unlearn.

Wilson starts the episode invested, remains invested, and is unsurprised by the ultimate tragedy of the episode. We are then told that, 9 years prior, he lost contact with his brother, who was homeless. We are shown that he was forced, in the past, against his will, to face the reality of homelessness.

In the beginning, Foreman dismisses Victoria's need to be there, saying homeless people lie about ailments so they can sleep in the hospital. In the middle, she admits that that is actually why she came in. He was right. By this point she is actually observably very ill with multiple serious ailments. In the end, she dies of something she would have been treated for long ago, if she were not homeless.

Wilson and Foreman dig into her past and discover that years ago she, while driving, had caused a car crash that killed her husband and son. We, the audience, are left to assume that that event led to a series of events culminating in her current unhoused status. She is an unreliable narrator of her own story, she is paranoid and scared and she attacks a doctor, she is an artist, she is a nice person, she DID lie to get help, AND she DID really need that help. And by the time she was in the hospital getting help from a team of atypically invested doctors, said help was too little too late to save her.

The complexity does not detract from this story or this lesson, it is an inherent part of it.

And I can't help feeling that the same episode, if it were filmed now (or perhaps what I mean is, if it were filmed at any time but with slightly less care), would give Foreman a backstory reason to distrust, and Wilson would NOT need a backstory reason to be compassionate, framing Goodness as default and Badness as other. Victoria would be a sympathetic victim of others evils, only ever kind despite her pain, dismissed despite pure intentions. She would be diagnosed with something that could affect anyone, showing that the homeless are just like the housed; we're all the same, actually. And maybe she would be cured, and offered help (money, a job, access to a shelter), to teach the audience, bittersweetly, that systemic problems can be overcome if you know the right people.

Instead, this episode was expertly written. Dismissal of the unhoused is commonplace and normalized. Compassion comes rarely and is hard won. People from any economic background can and do become unhoused. People in bad situations are inherently going to be complicated, and sometimes their situation IS their fault in one or many ways, and they still need help and support and medical care, and dismissing their needs is both easy and wrong. Unhoused people face many different problems than housed people do, their lives are different in many ways, and they are deserving of compassion despite and BECAUSE of this; being different does not make them less than. Systemic class oppression and the othering of unhoused people costs those people their lives in every way and at every level, and this is a tragedy. This is a tragedy.

This is a tragedy.

[rachelsfav-queer]

Wenkovina

(Warning: Kinda angsty with vague Enid-bashing, but it’s not intentional and is barely there. Otherwise, enjoy! Based on the Ricci!Wednesday AU on @caitlynskitten’s blog)

*In Divina’s room*

Wednesday: *holding back tears, poorly* She left me for an alternate version of me. It is… humiliating as much as it is emotionally devastating. Everyone was right. Goody, Gates, even that whiny, self-absorbed “tortured artist”.

Wednesday: I’m toxic, and I’m meant to be alone. Everyone is better off without me around. I shouldn’t be-

Divina: Hey! No, no none of that, okay? I don’t know what the hell is going on with her, but none of that is true, understand? Sure, you have some bad moments and all, but that doesn’t mean you deserve to be treated like this. It doesn’t mean you’re meant to be alone, Wends.

Yoko and Divina both move to sit on each side of the seer, wrapping their arms around her shoulders, only slightly surprised when she leans into their touch as she slowly starts losing her fight against her tears. They both put their free hands on each of her legs comfortingly.

Yoko: Vina’s right, lil goth. You’ve made mistakes in the past, but that doesn’t mean you deserve to be alone. You’re not evil, just complicated. Which just means… you’re human. And you deserve love and compassion.

Yoko cups Wednesday’s face with a hand, tilting her head to look up at her. The vampire takes her sunglasses off so the raven can look into her eyes and see the truth in them, even if she isn’t ready yet to believe it.

Yoko: We mean it. You’re a good person, honey. Not even just deep down, cause anyone who’s willing to look at you deeper than just surface level can see it. You care and you love in such a pure and powerful way. It’s honestly so damn beautiful and I am in awe of it. I’m in awe of you, Wednesday.

Divina: *softly* I feel the same way, sweetie. Your love is beautiful and I feel so lucky to be one of the few people allowed to see it. Even though you’ve been through so much, and been hurt by so many people, you still have this brightness inside you that’s blinding when you get to see it.

Wednesday feels a burning in her cheeks separate from the tears rolling down her face. The blush feels so good compared to the pain still residing deep inside her heart from the betrayal, and she leans into the fuzzy feeling it brings as she also leans deeper into the two girls surrounding her. Through her tears and the thick lump in her throat, Wednesday speaks with a grateful tone.

Wednesday: Th- thank you… I feel… better, somewhat. It still hurts, it hurts so bad and not in a good way at all. But your words make it feel not so horrible. I appreciate your… presence and your kindness for me during this. I don’t know how I would’ve survived without you two.

Suddenly, Wednesday yawns and she rubs her eyes, both from the sudden tiredness and the tears. It’s quite adorable in the opinions of the siren and the vampire, and they struggle to hold back from cooing, thinking it would probably be inappropriate at the moment. They gently move themselves and Wednesday so that they’re all lying down on the bed comfortably.

Yoko: You’ve had a long week, lil goth. You should sleep.

Wednesday: *shyly* I- I’m scared… of… of nightmares, about them. They come every night now.

Divina: *smiles comfortingly* Don’t worry, sweetheart. We’ll protect you from those nasty dreams. See, Yoko and I are actually secret agents, specially trained to fight off nightmares. We’re totally professionals! *fake punches the air*

Yoko: Yep! We’ve been fighting nightmares for pretty much our entire lives. It’s no easy job, but we’re equipped to handle it. They call us… “The Nightmare Warriors”!

Wednesday’s eyes roll so hard, they almost roll all the way back into her head, and yet she’s unable to fight back the small smile at the girls’ silly antics. Her tears slowly dry around her eyes and face, and the pain in her heart slowly wanes more and more as she takes in their loving embrace. It’s perfect, she’s never felt so loved and cared for. Maybe… maybe it’s not all so terrible. Wednesday keeps the smile on her face as she yawns again and quickly submits to the exhaustion pulling her into sleep. Surprisingly, or maybe not, she doesn’t have any nightmares for the first time in nearly a week. And it’s the deepest sleep she’s ever had in her whole life. Yoko and Divina keep their promise, and they protect her, both from nightmares and anything or anyone else that tries to harm her.

End <3

(Note: Sorry this was so long, I totally got carried away lol. Also sorry but also not sorry for the angst lol. I really don’t intend for the Enid bashing, it really just sorta happened. She’s not a bad person in this AU, just ignorant of the harm she causes. I really tried to avoid any bashing, so genuine apologies for what little there is. Hope y’all enjoyed nonetheless!)

[moonastrogirl]

Escape the matrix month by month with astrology

Credit @moonastrogirl

Escaping the matrix is still working, paying bills and being a normal citizen. Escaping the matrix is having money to fulfil our needs and desires plus taking accountability for our actions and decisions. It’s not living in delulu land. Escaping the matrix is an inner job. It’s raising our authenticity and our frequency so that others do the same around us.

Escaping the matrix is easy. Just avoid doing what everybody is doing at the same time.

For instance : when the time for sales arrives, do not buy anything. Do the opposite. Give to others. Society wants us to buy stuff, clothes and get distracted at the beginning of the year. Why ? Because we must not. We must focus our energy into ourselves and not get distracted. Same goes for the Black Friday.

-> Where attention goes, energy flows.

In January Aquarius’s energy urge you to look at yourself and ask : What kind of person are you ? Who are you ? Who do you want to be ?Know yourself and heal yourself in January.

What does Aquariuses do best ? Think outside-of-the-box. They are knowledgeable and innovative people who improve the world. So that exactly what everybody should be doing.

-> Aquarius is also the humanitarian of the signs. The best thing to do is charity work and donate clothes in January. It’s cold outside and homeless people have it worse when everyone is outside spending their money on sales and not looking in their direction. Look at them and show empathy. Help them if you can.

In February do you really need to buy or receive flowers and go on an expensive dinner date to show love to your lover or you can simply just do it all year long ? Again don’t buy anything.

-> Do not participate in traditions which are designed to distract you from what you need to do.

February is Pisces season and Pisces are amazing at anything they do once they believe in what they do. They are not delusional, they just believe wholeheartedly in what they want to do, have and achieve. Like Pisces believe in yourself in February. Only do what you believe it’s best for you and you only.

In March like Aries, be your authentic self and become yourself. Take action on yourself and your authenticity like Aries be assertive in who you are. Like Aries be your true self. Show up as your true self and be authentic in every room you are in. Be the definition of what you see is what you get. People must see through your actions and your presence who you truly are.

In April do not be part of April’s fool. Just completely ignore it. Forget about it and go on with your life as if it doesn’t even exist. If people try jokes on you, ignore them. April is Taurus season. Tauruses are stubborn, grounded, strong willed and they know how to stay in their lane. Do the same.

In May the intellectual and stimulating Gemini’s energy urges us to think by ourselves and for ourselves. Think critically for yourself. Do not be influenced by other’s opinions and thoughts on someone or something, think about it yourself for yourself.

In June the sweet and caring Cancer’s energy asks us to feel. Feel your feelings and how you feel about yourself, your surroundings and people you meet. Ask yourself : what am I feeling right now ? Do not suppress your feelings or your emotions because they are compass guiding you.

In July Leo’s energy is here to make us focus on self love. Love yourself even when you don’t feel like loving yourself, even if you are alone, even if you don’t feel beautiful. Love yourself no matter what.

-> Again July is the time of sales and you know what it means : do not buy anything. There is a reason why sales take place in January and July. Those two months are important ones where we should be focusing on ourselves.

-> Self love has little to do with how much you can spend. Self love has everything to do with you, who you are, how you express who you are and what you love most. Self love is rooted in joy. The joy of being yourself.

In August Virgo’s energy asks us to examine, analyse and assess ourselves. Did we do what we needed to do to get here ? What else need to be done ? Abundance comes from analysing ourselves. It’s the month of harvest number 8 in numerology. The karmic month. We reap what we have sow the past months of the year.

In September Libra’s energy ask us to balance ourselves. Work on your confidence and find balance within yourself. Do not overdo, do not underdo. Balance yourself to balance your life.

In October Scorpio’s energy ask us to desire ourselves. Are we attracted to ourselves ? How is our sex life ? Do we please ourselves or please others ? People pleasers don’t see themselves as sexy and attractive.

In November Sagittarius’s energy is made for us to think big, to expand and have the vision to create our dream life. Sagittarius is optimistic and see the bigger picture. Expand your vision in November and see clearly.

In December Capricorn’s energy urge us to do things, to work and to use ourselves to make things happen in our life. After the vision Sagittarius gives us. Capricorn is the execution part. Do not get caught up in the Black Friday bs it’s a distraction once again from fully embracing the energy coming our way. Do not use yourself to benefit others. Use yourself to benefit yourself.

If you resonates with this post and you find it useful, please like, leave a comment or reblog it. It needs to be seen by as many people as possible to raise our collective frequency this year. Thank you for reading me 💜

Credit @moonastrogirl

[chamerionwrites]

Man I was trying to be nice about it because ime Christians are frequently well-meaning albeit astonishingly naive about these things (been there done that brutally disabused of those illusions, so yknow, my sympathies), but if I see one more post about how brave and relevant that sermon to Trump was I’m gonna SNAP. That kind of chance to speak truth to power and you ask for mercy? For mercy? From people who clearly despise weakness and vulnerability of any kind? FOR people who have done nothing wrong? Mercy? MERCY? That’s what you think is called for here?

Sorry but who the hell are you preaching to, because it isn’t those ghouls in the pews. If I am being very unkind, I suspect it’s to the audience of liberals who already agree with you, and who will shower you with praise for soothing their consciences and stroking their egos. It’s funny - and predictable - that conservatives are shriekingly furious about what was frankly a pretty milquetoast sermon. It’s sad that people are so accustomed to Christians kissing up to power that the softest hint of dissent is welcomed with such relief and admiration. If I’m being generous I think maybe you didn’t know what to say but felt compelled to say something, and kudos for having a backbone I suppose - but I also think you’re bad at your job.

Because it is not difficult to be much, much clearer and braver and more relevant than that. The only thing those people believe in is fear and force and power. If you really want to get through to them, speak the language they understand! Put the actual fear of God in them! It’s so easy you don’t even need to write a sermon; you can read right from the Bible. James 5 is a real classic:

Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the innocent one, who was not opposing you.

Or you could try Habakkuk 2:

Woe to him who piles up stolen goods and makes himself wealthy by extortion! How long must this go on? Will not your debtors suddenly arise? Will they not wake up and make you tremble? Then you will become their victim. Because you have plundered many nations, the peoples who are left will plunder you. For you have shed man’s blood; you have destroyed lands and cities and everything in them.

Woe to him who builds his realm by unjust gain to set his nest on high, to escape the clutches of ruin! You have plotted the ruin of many peoples, shaming your own house and forfeiting your life. The stones of the wall will cry out, and the beams of the woodwork will echo it.

Zechariah 7:

And the word of the Lord came again to Zechariah: “This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor. In your hearts do not think evil of each other.’”

But they refused to pay attention; stubbornly they turned their backs and stopped up their ears. They made their hearts as hard as flint and would not listen to the law or to the words that the Lord Almighty had sent by his spirit through the earlier prophets. So the Lord Almighty was very angry.

Matthew 25:

Then he will say to those on his left, “Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.”

They also will answer, “Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?”

He will reply, “I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.”

I’m quite fond of Isaiah 58, personally. Really drives home the point that surface religious observance is not just worthless but actively offensive when you’re oppressing the vulnerable:

For day after day they seek me out; they seem eager to know my ways, as if they were a nation that does what is right and has not forsaken the commands of its God. They ask me for just decisions and seem eager for God to come near them. “Why have we fasted,” they say, “and you have not seen it? Why have we humbled ourselves and you have not noticed?”

Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please and exploit all your workers. Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife, and in striking each other with wicked fists. You cannot fast as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high. Is this the kind of fast I have chosen, only a day for people to humble themselves? Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed and lying in sackcloth and ashes? Is that what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord?

Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter - when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?

Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard. Then you will call, and the Lord will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.

If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, and if you spend yourselves on behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday. The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations; you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.

[kanerallels]

Better late than never: day four of @kaneraweek! Shoutout to @candiedstardust, who made this post that helped inspire the first portion of the fic!

Read on AO3!

Taglist: @accidental-spice @day-to-day-thots @opalknight @auroramagpie @heckin-music-dork @cassie-fanfics @ana-cantskywalker @lothalnyx (DM me or send an ask if you want to be added or removed from my taglist!)

1. Pre SWR

Zaluna Myder had been around for a long time, longer than she’d want to admit if she cared about such things. She’d seen a lot before she lost her eyesight, working for Transcept first for the Republic, then later for the Empire.

In the past few years since she left her job for retirement on a peaceful sunlit planet, she’d learned even more, about life and how people acted, even when you couldn’t see them. The few visitors she had were quite the education.

Foremost among them were the people who’d saved her life in the first place. Kanan Jarrus and Hera Syndulla were kind, caring people, despite how different they were—her determinated and focused, him devil-may-care and quippy. But they both shared an undeniable compassion.

And of course, there was the fact that they were completely head over heels in love with each other.

From the first moment they’d met, Kanan had flirted with Hera, which she met with polite deflection or wry sarcasm. Never unkind, Zaluna had noted, simply direct and uninterested.

But something had changed after their near death experience on the Forager, and Hera had taken him on as a crew member. And as the years had passed, and the two of them came back for the occasional visit, they’d changed even more. The way they talked, teasing and bantering, the warmth in their tones directed at each other. It was obvious, even to one without eyes.

“When are you going to do something about your feelings for that captain of yours?” she’d asked Kanan one day when they came to visit. He always insisted on cooking for them, claiming it was the least he could do.

Kanan was silent for a moment, just a moment too long. “Come on, Zal,” he said, tone easy in a way she didn’t quite believe. “She’s the captain, like you said. She wants things to stay the same, and I’m gonna respect that.”

Zaluna just let out a scoff, hoping that would be response enough. A little later, she slipped out of the kitchen, leaving Kanan to his work, and went to find Hera. The Twi’lek woman was hard at work repairing Zaluna’s dryer, which was far from the biggest issue in the galaxy, but the pair seemed to like to work when they came to visit. Zaluna wasn’t about to complain.

Instead, she asked, “When are you going to tell Kanan how you feel?”

There was a clang, and a muffled yelp of pain. A second later, Hera’s voice came clearer. “Hi, Zaluna.”

“Hello,” Zaluna said. “So?”

Hera let out a long sigh. “Zal, it’s not like that. He’s just a friend and co-worker.”

“Uh-huh.” Zaluna hoped her expression was sufficiently unconvinced.

It must have been, because Hera sighed again. “He wouldn’t believe me at this point, anyway.”

“Hmm,” Zaluna said skeptically. “So you’re giving up. Doesn’t sound like the Hera I know.”

Hera chose not to respond, and Zaluna headed back to the kitchen, satisfied with her meddling for the evening. They’d figure it out eventually, she was sure. They may have been acting it, but they weren’t fools.

Season 1

Kallus had thought he knew everything there was to know about the rebel cell he was hunting. He’d read and reread their files over and over again, and written a  good deal of those files himself. The Mandalorian bounty hunter who’d been disgraced at the Imperial academy. The Loth-rat turned Jedi apprentice. The Lasat who’d somehow survived the carnage on Lasan (he pushed aside a twinge and told himself it was from indigestion). And of course their leader, the renegade Jedi.

There was also their pilot, who Kallus had known little to nothing about. Just that they were exceptionally talented.

And then. He’d met this pilot, while maneuvering the rebels into a trap with the help of Senator Gall Trayvis. As it turned out, it was a Twi’lek woman, who’d glared at him sharply enough to melt the durasteel of his armor, and Kallus was currently resetting his assumptions about who exactly the leader of the Spectres was.

And then there had been one other thing. Something that hadn’t been obvious to the naked eye until one realized it was there. Something that had Kallus hesitating as he wrote up his report on the incident.

The Twi’lek and the Jedi.

They were…something.

It wasn’t obvious, as he’d said. It simply in the way they moved, like they were constantly in each other’s orbit. Like they were always aware of the other and ready to move to help their…partner. Two people, one mind. One purpose.

His parents had never been like that. Growing up, his family had been poor, and that had put strain on both of them, making them angry and sharp with each other. Kallus had heard more fights than loving exchanges between them.

He hadn’t thought much of marriage then, and even now romance was far from the forefront of his mind. But it brought back a memory, one he hadn’t even remembered he had.

Back in the academy, he’d spent a lot of time wandering the upper levels of Coruscant, ignoring some of the snobbier of his classmates. And one day, when he’d been out and about, he’d spotted this couple. A man and woman, arm in arm. 

They’d been totally unaware of any of the others around them, just talking to each other. The man had been in Imperial uniform, but the easy, warm smile was the first thing Kallus had seen, not his rank badge. The woman was wearing civilian clothing, but the way she leaned into him made everything else unimportant. They were both where they wanted to be, it was obvious.

Jarrus and the pilot had both had the same way about them. It was a small detail, but it was far from unimportant.

If the duo were romantically interested in each other, it could be used as leverage. The Grand Inquisitor would want to know.

And yet. Every time Kallus tried to write the report, he thought of that couple, happy and at peace. Not caring about anything else around them.

Perhaps, he thought, it doesn’t matter. Not that much. The rebels will be vanquished one way or another. This particular detail is hardly important.

Deleting what he’d started to write, he sent the rest of the report.

Season 2

“I see her! I see her, Kanan, it’s bad. You’ve got to hurry.”

Commander Jun Sato felt his stomach twist at the sight of the blackened wreck that was Captain Syndulla’s A-Wing, drifting toward their command vessel. Next to him, he could see Kanan’s stricken expression.

They’d sent her on what they’d hoped would be a peaceful expedition. But they should have known better. Where the Empire—and, for that matter, Mandalorians—were concerned, it was better to be cautious.

Now, they’d lost men. And there was no telling what Captain Syndulla’s condition was.

Sato opened his mouth to order a tractor beam to pull in the A-Wing, but Jarrus was already moving. “I’ve got her,” he called over his shoulder.

“...what does that mean, sir?” asked one of the very confused techs. “Should we use the tractor beam?”

Knowing the Jedi, it’s anyone’s guess. “Begin to tractor in the ship,” Sato decided. “Wait for my command to halt it, understood?”

The still baffled techs nodded, and Sato headed for the landing bay.

He wasn’t alone when he got there. There was a scattering of pilots and mechanics, and both Garazeb Orrelios and Ezra Bridger were arriving in the bay right behind him.

Kanan, on the other hand, was already there. His gaze was fixed on the ship being brought toward them. And as Sato watched, he lifted his hands, and the air seemed to thrum.

Grabbing his comlink, Sato keyed it on. “Switch off the tractor beam,” he ordered.

“Yes, sir—” one of the techs started, but fell silent sharply, most likely stunned silent by the same thing that had caused the hush in the hangar.

The A-Wing was moving of its own accord, with a different grace than that of the tractor beam. Sato sent a quick glance at Kanan, who had his eyes shut, expression perfectly calm and focused. A few heartbeats later, the ship came to rest a few yards away.

The other two A-Wings, piloted by Wren and the only other pilot who’d made it, came to rest a few moments later, but Sato was watching Kanan. Without waiting for the rescue team that had started forward, he’d leapt atop the A-Wing, freeing the top with a wave of his hand. Whispers rippled through the crowd watching, shock and awe flickering over their faces as Kanan carefully pulled Captain Syndulla free of the wreckage.

Blood soaked the front of her jumpsuit, and Sato could see gleaming shards of transparisteel and durasteel shrapnel. Kanan slipped his arms around her, one supporting her gently as he pressed two fingers against her neck. “She’s got a pulse,” he called over his shoulder, and Sato saw Ezra’s face crumple with relief. “Zeb, go let the med bay know I’m on my way.”

“On it!” Zeb shouted, bolting out of the room, Ezra on his heels. Kanan lifted Hera in his arms, leaping down from the A-Wing and moving for the door. As he passed, Sato heard him whisper, “I got you. Stay with us, Hera.”

As the Spectres disappeared from the landing bay, Sato took a moment to collect himself. Despite her injuries, he was almost positive that Captain Syndulla would make a full recovery. Perhaps it was just a gut feeling, but he suspected there was too much for her to come back to here, with her crew and her Jedi.

Season 3 (ish)

It had only been a week at the new base on Yavin 4 when Wedge started hearing people wondering about Captain Syndulla.

In their defense, she was an ace pilot, undoubtedly their best and most caring commanding officer, and all around one of the coolest people in the Rebellion. Wedge could understand why people would have a crush on her. He just also knew it was dumb and fruitless.

He, personally, had never harbored a shred of interest in the captain. She was the best pilot around, and she was incredibly kind. But first of all, she acted more like a mom than a potential crush.

And second of all, anyone who’d seen her around her Jedi for more than two seconds knew exactly how little a chance they had.

Some people may have argued that they never kissed or anything in real life, and there were no rings. How could they be sure Hera Syndulla and Kanan Jarrus were an item?

Wedge laughed at those people. A lot.

They could be sure because of every single moment between those two. Wedge had been there for many of those moments—how they acted like Ezra and Sabine’s parents, the stories Ezra and Zeb told, how they both worried about the other whenever they went on solo missions. Wedge had seen Captain Syndulla calling Kanan multiple times while he was out with Sabine and Ezra on their impromptu Mandalorian training camp, as Zeb referred to it.

And of course, there had been the moment, when Thrawn had found their base, and the bombardment had almost taken them out, when Hera had been trying to reach Kanan. Wedge had been there, getting ready to go back up in his A-Wing again. But he’d seen the fear in Hera’s eyes as she waited for Kanan to respond. And the pure joy when he spoke. And, of course, he still remembered what she’d said to him.

“Please, come home, love.”

So sure, people could claim that they didn’t know what was going on. That was fine. Wedge would happily laugh in their faces later if they tried to make a move on Captain Syndulla. He knew the truth.

Season 4

Yeah, this was definitely Ezra’s craziest plan yet.

He knew it, the purrgil probably knew it, the Imperials on the Chimaera definitely knew it, and his crew watching him far below knew it.

But he didn’t really care, as long as it kept them safe.

As he concentrated, and the purrgil started to prepare for hyperspace, he reached out, sensing the flickers of light that his crew were in the Force. They were all down there—Zeb, Chopper, Sabine, and Hera. The latter of whom were terrified, and he hated that.

He knew how much Hera didn’t want to lose someone else. Especially now, with the flicker of life growing within her. (She and Kanan assumed no one knew, but Ezra wasn’t an idiot. He’d sensed the baby pretty quickly, and he couldn’t be happier.)

But it was okay, he thought, his mind shifting to another flicker of light—this one farther away, and dim, still recovering. They’re in good hands.

Really, he should have known Kanan wasn’t dead right away. Death wouldn’t dare take his master away from the woman he loved.

Take care of them, Kanan, he thought.

Aloud, he said, “And remember, the Force will be with you. Always.”

And then he was gone.

Ahsoka series

“If Thrawn survived does that mean Ezra…”

Hera’s voice wavered, trailing off, but Ahsoka could see the hope in her eyes. The hope that had faded far too much over the past few years. “I hope so,” she said gently.

“I know so.”

Kanan’s voice was firm, steady, and Ahsoka glanced at him. “You’ve sensed him?”

The man sighed, running a hand over his hair—already going silver, Ahsoka noted, most likely thanks to the influence of a certain green-haired child and his orange droid accomplice. “No,” he admitted. “But I would have sensed it if he was—I would have sensed it. I don’t care how many drugs I was on at the time.”

He was stubborn, as he’d always been about this. Ahsoka knew Hera hadn’t held onto as much hope as Kanan had, no matter how much she trusted him. It was hard to hope for so long. She’d been there herself.

Changing the subject, she brought up the star map, and explained how they’d been unable to open it so far. Hera snorted in amusement. “Never a straight line with you Jedi, is it?” she asked, shooting a sideways glance at Kanan.

A smile curved up the corner of his mouth. “Makes life more interesting this way, you’ve got to admit.”

“Do I?” Hera quipped just as a Mon Calamari appeared on the balcony above them.

“General, the Defense Council is requesting an update on the incident,” he said.

“Tell them I’ll be right there,” Hera told him before turning back to Ahsoka. “You know who could help you with this,” she said, handing her back the star map.

Sabine. “I’m not sure she’ll want to help,” Ahsoka said slowly.

“She will,” Hera told her. “For Ezra.”

“And she definitely will if you bring back up,” Kanan added, and Ahsoka and Hera looked at him at the same time.

“Are you volunteering?” Ahsoka asked slowly, and he and Hera exchanged one of those looks that held a thousand words. Their ability to communicate without words truly rivaled that of the Jedi—though so many years of marriage would do that, she supposed.

“I am,” Kanan said. To Hera, he said, “It’s been way too long since we saw her anyway. And I can bring Jacen, get him out of the fighter pilots’ hair.”

Hera laughed. “Fair enough. Okay, then. I’ve got a defense council to appease—don’t leave without saying goodbye.” Giving Ahsoka a smile, she headed out of the room.

Turning to face her, Kanan said, “Okay. Let’s go find Ezra.”

If anyone could do it, Ahsoka mused, it was this crew.

[hiswordsarekisses]

If they did know they were deceived, they would not be deceived. No one chooses to be deceived. It starts with a lack of love for the truth, according to 2 Thessalonians chapter two.

To love the truth is to want to know the truth regardless of what it is - even if it means we are wrong. But honestly, my question is - why wouid we want to believe a lie??? What good would it do? I want the truth - and nothing but the truth - because it's the truth that sets us free.

I know one well known reporter who lost her job at a well known news channel because she refused to back down from the truth.

She was so committed to the truth that she had reported what she believed to be the truth about the candidate she wanted to win the presidency - even though this information cast him in a bad light - and could possibly affect whether or not he would be elected.

THEN...

when she found out that the actual truth was actually that this particular candidate was innocent, she recanted

- and she was fired.

She loved the truth more than she loved her job... That takes genuine integrity.

It is very hard to come by the truth these days - you really have to dig for it on both sides of any given report.

And that's really easy to do if you truly want the truth.

People have lost their consciences these days, just as the Bible foretold.

There is no dishonorable length that is too far to go for many who find popularity and acceptance by the crowd to be the most important thing.

Some will even create an exaggerated extremely dramatic scene to convince others of their (UN)righteous indignation.

(I recently witnessed this the one time I happened to flip past the channel where the "The View" was airing, and it was one of the most disturbing thing I have ever witnessed.)

Staying consistently in the Word and prayer is the only way to have the discernment necessary for the type of gaslighting that is now being perpetuated on the world by those with an unholy and willful agenda. . .I would say "evil" agenda but I honestly believe they do not know they have been deceived. . .

As scripture states:

"they have been taken captive by the enemy to do his will." (2-Timothy-2:26)

The deception is becoming so severe, the Bible says, that - if it were possible - even the very chosen of God would be deceived as well.

But if you are looking to Him, and trusting Him - to keep you in truth - and also daily in prayer and in the word - and praying to love the truth - God will never never NEVER let you down.

Even if you get off track, He will bring us right back. He remembers that we are only humans, made of dust - He comes RUNNING with compassion to rescue us from our deception - because He loves us - but also because He knows that we are trusting Him!!!

Jesus used an earthly father as an example when saying; "would a father not give his son bread when he asked for it, and not a stone instead?" He was reassuring us that we can trust Him even more than an earthly father to answer our prayers and needs.

God says those without wisdom and discernment - have only to ask for it and He will give it to us. But we cannot ask - and not be following. We cannot ask and not be living for the Lord.

Scripture clearly instructs us that "to be readers of the Word and not doers of it, we deceive ourselves!!" (James 1:22)

Reading the book of first John is a good way to test ourselves. God loves us too much to be some kind of sugar daddy or spoiling grandparent - just giving us whatever we ask for as we live our lives for ourselves - contrary to the Word of God.

Do you see the process progress in your life? Or are you the same way you were when you got saved?

Are you convicted by your sin, or is sin just as normal as ever, and you don't think twice about it? Where it’s habitual?

Do you love the brethren?

Are you growing in the fruits of the spirit?

It does take a tree a long time to begin to produce fruit, but you know deep inside your knower whether you feel the energizing and conviction of the Holy Spirit within you - transforming you from the inside out, getting ready to bud. Reading the Word prayerfully helps us to examine these things.

We absolutely will not know the truth if we are not going after it for ourselves and we are listening to everyone else too much. Preachers, teachers, and prophets have their place - but they should never replace our own searching and learning of truth in God's Word.

As soon as we begin to rely on other voices, another persons research, other books, etc., we open the door to possibly be fed lies and deception.

Right now is more critical a time than ever to be playing around like that. It's not worth it. Those other voices are not who will be standing before God for you, YOU will stand there alone - face to face with Love Himself, but also face to face with truth.

Jesus said “I Am The Truth, z the Way, and The Life.” (John 14:6)

There are so many warnings throughout scripture that explain what kind of things open the door of our mind, heart and life to deception.

These are scriptures that literally say "we deceive ourselves."

I typed the following into google:

"scripture deceiving ourselves"

And it came back with the very top search result link saying:

“53 verses on deceiving ourselves."

The very best thing we can do is to get alone with God and ask for understanding, insight, discernment, revelation knowledge and wisdom. God surely does answer this prayer in bucket loads.

I learned to ask this by experience, and by experience I learned that God loves to answer! It's incredible.

I wonder how much deeper our understanding and wisdom would be if we fasted from other voices and books, etc...

Just alone with God and His Word for days - weeks - months maybe. It will literally transform our lives in ways we never dreamed.

God wants to speak to YOU.

Maybe it's time to get all the other voices and stuff out of the way for a while.

Pray to be able to drop all preconceived thoughts and teachings of men, and be taught by the Holy Spirit.

To forget everything we have been {taught to see} as we read scripture, and to be able to see what has been blocked by deception

- things that we never even knew was there.

I have been there.. a lot!

I am not dumb enough to ever assume I have it all figured out, so l regularly continue to study in this way, because I was so amazed and shocked by what I learned that I can never go back to the way I used to be fed.

Once Jesus Himself feeds you the WHOLE meal - meat, milk, and even desert

- nothing else will ever satisfy again.

He gets deep inside of us and we are left too ruined and spoiled to ever settle for secondhand news from those other voices ever again!

•*•*•

"O Lord, if I be deceived - in ANY way - please un-deceive me!" - C. H. Spurgeon

•*•*•

(His Words Are Kisses - Dana Jean Klibert)

[rozaceous]

As somebody who...might...be more than a little addicted to reading fics, uh. ...

yo this is a place of no judgment and deep compassion bc I'm not being cute or at all joking when I say that I'm addicted. it's a genuine (if relatively benign in the scheme of things) behavioral addiction. in my therapist's words, approximately, it's at least not self-harm or doing coke, lol.

at the same time, it's something I use as a dissociative crutch, and while I've always read a lot, it gained a huge foothold in my life when I worked three jobs, was having significant family drama and health issues, and understandably had no energy or time for enjoyable activities that weren't reading on my phone. and then covid happened. so fanfic was legit something that helped keep me sane and happy, and I'm eternally grateful to all the authors who write and share their work. it's art in the truest sense, in my opinion. this doesn't stop it from simultaneously having become a maladaptive coping strategy that currently hinders me from living life as fully as I want.

there are a lot of other things to that last statement, obviously, and I won't go into it here bc I do have a therapist for that, and also it's personal. but I know without a doubt that I'm not the only person who has trouble with this.

one of the things I've been doing recently is trying to understand why it's so easy to fall into this kind of addiction, specifically how our current techno-cultural landscape plays a role, as well as resilience strategies. I expect I'll be reading and learning for a long time, but on the role of technology and how it relates to our (in)attention culture, I liked:

The Shallows by Nicholas Carr (published in 2009 before the socmed boom but still so incredibly topical)

The Glass Cage by Nicholas Carr (specifically about automation, and published in 2014 before AI exploded...also still very topical)

How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell

Deep Work by Cal Newport

[solarpunkpresentspodcast]

Hope for the present, not the future

Reading the previous post on this blog by Christina, I can’t help but feel… a lot of déja vu, actually. I don’t mean to be blasé at all, because everything that Christina alludes to and talks about in that article is concretely, depressingly relatable. From this side of the Atlantic, I’ve been grimly avoiding looking too deeply into what “Project 2025” entails, because honestly? If it happens, it will happen and I won’t be able to do anything even if I know every up-to-date detail about it, so why borrow the trouble? I have enough in my own life (and country’s politics) already, but being geographically situated next to America is really uncomfortable, in that their problems are almost simultaneously ours, and if they’re not, the entangled political-economic-sociocultural mess makes it that way. And yet my reaction to news of upheaval, disruption, and impending doom is to say “okay” and then go back to my little solarpunk ways of living and being. Given all of the strife that bombards my consciousness on a daily basis, why am I still writing hopelessly naïve articles about compassion and optimism et cetera on the internet? It’s a serious question, not really a rhetorical one. I wrote this article to see if I could come up with an answer; I think I recognized a few different factors, but I’m curious to know what you think after reading through the article. Let me know in the comments.

My father is quite sure that Trump is going to annex Canada,* given our reservoirs of freshwater, and the fact that history is rhyming pretty hard right now in his view as the child of immigrants who left their home after the ravages of World War 2. That one started with Germany annexing Austria, and look how that went. He’s not alone in that opinion, either. However, and perhaps this is the anti-anxiety medication and antidepressants speaking, wars have happened before, a lot, and are happening now, a lot, and people living and dying violently happens pretty much every day; it might just be our turn next. Sucks to suck, but that just seems to be the way of the world, and living on this planet means running the risk of The Bad Thing Happening. Hm, maybe it’s post-car-accident trauma or whatever, but random happenings (not even malice aforethought!) ruins peoples’ lives every day and that’s the way of the world.

Maybe I’m more positive because my family (both sides; my Oma and Opa lived through the war as well before coming to Canada) lived through an apocalypse** that was a political violent upheaval and war in Europe; they were poor farmers already, they had nothing when the politicians decided that the war had ended, and they still managed to make a pretty good life for themselves and their families in the aftermath. So I’ve seen that people can live through these things, and their lives do get better. Eventually. You have to scrimp and save and deal with racist bullshit and work menial jobs for a good long while, but I am programmed to believe that you make it there in the end, because I am living proof of it. So I might be biased, and too focused on that end result.

Or it might be because I recently spent six years studying post-apocalyptic fiction and have read through a myriad of imagined ends … as well as the imagined worlds that come after those ends. Grant you, a lot of those worlds are pretty terrible places to exist! But they do exist. And there are people (the protagonists that we follow) who are working to make it a better place. Kind of like solarpunks are now, actually. To tl;dr the takeaway of the fourth chapter of my dissertation in a very blasé way, horrible death is already a foregone conclusion in the post-disaster/-apocalypse scenarios, so the best thing to do is to make life as good as possible for the people around you for as long as you can to the best of your abilities until you expire.

Looking at the news, it’s easy to conclude that the world is full of doom and gloom and awfulness. Just following the reports coming out of Gaza and the Congo alone makes it pretty hard to imagine humanity acting worse than we already are. But it’s not actually all of humanity committing war crimes and exploiting children and adults with literal slave labour. There happens to be a lot of people who think that behaviour is abhorrent, and are organizing against the inhumane treatment of others (including earth others); there are, in fact, many communities of caring individuals who will stand up for human rights. I don’t think it’s incendiary to say “Hm, maybe you shouldn’t hurt someone else even if they’ve hurt you.” I feel like this is something we try to teach our children and bake into our narratives of who is actually heroic and who isn’t.

The people in charge might be okay with the cost of their political agenda being human suffering, but it helps to keep in mind that, in many cases, they’re a pretty small percentage of a pretty large amount of people. It’s true that in a lot of the so-called democracies we have in the Global North right now, there is a lot of support for terrible people with terrible ideas - but it is also good to keep in mind that the political systems we operate in are, each of them, abysmal. As the saying goes, “democracy is the worst political system, aside from all the other ones.” Jokes aside, reading about the stats of First Past The Post elections, voter suppression, and more can be at the same time disheartening as it is encouraging: there are good people in the world, but a lot of their votes do not count for much … if they can vote at all.

Despite that, I think it is important to participate in one’s political system, no matter where they are located. Especially at the municipal level - that is where I find that some of the most progressive, exciting work is being done. In my opinion, if you aren’t especially thrilled about government, it’s not really very smart to disengage from it, because involved or not, you’ll still fall victim to those who manipulate the political system and you will not know how to fight back. Sun-Tzu says to “know thy enemy” and I’m not suggesting you embark on an entire political science degree, but if you have the capacity for it, participating in direct democracy, attending council meetings, volunteering with a local union or political organization will give you the skills you need to understand and become familiar with the policies affecting your life … and also give you the tools with which to change things. This piece (article and full poem “To Throw a Wrench in the Blood Machine”) by Kyle Tran Myhre discusses voting as just one tool in a toolkit in more detail, in a very nuanced although US-politics centric way, and the line “But those who fight monsters have taught me: short-term and long-term thinking are not mutually exclusive” is very relatable. Solarpunk is about both-and, not either/or.

People survive dark and dangerous times by organizing, by reaching out to each other, by enacting practices of care. Maybe caring for you takes the form of making a poster for your local tenants’ union and NOT going to the rally. Maybe it’s watering the little tree next to your bus stop in a heat wave. Maybe it’s organizing a neighbourhood potluck, or just showing up to the one that someone else organized, signalling solidarity with your presence. I have found that being a body that is present is often such a boon to an organizer, regardless of whether or not your participation goes beyond that.

This essay is rather wander-y and I hope not too Pollyannaish. But I’ve had the sinking feeling that life was only ever going to get worse since I was 23; that’s over a decade that I’ve had to get used to this expectation of future ruin psychically, so perhaps that’s coming out. I don’t really expect things to get better, and I don’t know that I ever have. The only thing that really interrupted my internal narrative of cynicism and doomerism was solarpunk! And I still have to dose myself up with it, deliberately choose to reframe my mindset, whenever I start to spiral. Because I do, a lot, when I think about futures. There’s a reason I’m medicated - there’s nothing off with my brain chemistry, though; instead, everything’s off with the world. I marvel that more people are not clinically depressed or diagnosed with anxiety given the state of things.

As far as I can tell, my hope is thus a very present one: it is sparked by other humans who get together in groups to make life better for other people right now. Life can be terrible, miserable, and dark. The universe can seem vast and uncaring. But somewhere there’s a soup kitchen, and a coalition of people writing their government officials for more affordable housing supports, and they’re caring in this moment about the things that are also happening in this moment and the people who live around them now, and they are not deciding not to act because of a calculation based on a possible future outcome (although certainly that is part of their assessment of the situation, it is not the deciding factor). So I might not be part of those groups, but just knowing that they exist and are working towards justice but also being just now and kind now and acting with compassion now… maybe sometimes that’s what I need to hold on to in order to keep the dark at bay.

I want to write one more paragraph that talks about why then, for me, solarpunk is more oriented towards the now, not to the future. I think I needed to start with a solarpunk that dreamed of possible futures so that I could actually begin to see how I could work in the now, and solarpunk futurism gives me a goal. But personally, solarpunk presents is where it’s at.

—-

*I find it darkly funny that our next prime minister is almost guaranteed to be the alt-right-courting Conservative politician Pierre Poilievre, who has on many occasions criticized our current PM for weakening / destroying / doing bad things to our relationship with America (economic/political/etc). If Trump gets in, Polievre will have to deal with him first hand - and he will either welcome foreign troops with open arms (as many Canadians wish they were Americans, oddly enough) or bumble his way into being bravely run over by tanks.

**I remember interviewing my Beppe in grade three about her childhood experience of WWII and she talked about evacuating down roads where there were dead and bloated cows and human bodies (mostly soldiers) torn apart on the side of the road. Before the end of the war they were eating tulip bulbs and potato peelings in the basement of their home while Nazi troops occupied the main floor. Very apocalyptic. I figured everyone’s grandparents had stories like this, though, and by the time I was fourteen I was so sick of hearing about World War Two, because our history curriculum seemed kind of obsessed. I got it at home AND at school. Ugh, apocalypse, whatever, let me get back to reading my Animorphs plz.

[cripplepunkqueer]

a speech i gave at a vigil for Gaza.

I come here to speak before you today in mourning of all those martyred in the genocide in Palestine - an emotion I am sure is shared by many of you.  It’s difficult to know what to say in the face of such atrocities, and I’ve long since realized that it’s normal to not have a good response to this.  

This is supposed to be difficult.  Every life lost to this genocide is an entire universe extinguished, and if it is easy to contend with that - something is wrong with us..  But, I will try to find the best words I can by beginning with a prayer to hold space for that grief, hold space for the feelings all of us have.  This is a prayer for Gaza written by Antizionist Rabbi Brant Rosen.

Makor Refuah – Source of Healing, send blessings to those grievously injured in body and spirit:

heal their trauma, grant them comfort and consolation from the wells of your boundless compassion;

help them, support them, guide them through this terrifying time of pain and fear and loss;

remind them that they are all created in your image – that no state, no government, no military, no weapon can ever rob them of their essential humanity.

Ruach Ha’olam – Spirit of the Universe, inspire us to bear witness against the overwhelming harm being unleashed against a captive population even as we speak these words now.

Let us be unceasing in our demand for an end to this violence, for healing, for reparation, for true justice throughout the land.

Ken yehi ratzon – May it be your will Ve’chen yehi retzoneynu – and may it be ours;

Ve’nomar – and let us say Amen

Thank you. As an Irish-American Jew I stand at an interesting intersection of identities. With the aggressively Irish name I have along with the way I aggressively show my Jewishness in the things I wear - it can often be a bit surprising to people to find out I’m both Jewish and Antizionist.  But - both of my identities drive me to the political identity of antizionism in different ways - from the deeply held bond between Ireland and Palestine to the tenets of my Jewish faith that command me to cherish the sanctity of human life, I stand tall in my antizionism.  

There is a seanfhocal - an Irish proverb - that I try to live my life by.  Loosely translated from Gaeilge (the irish language) it reads - “Under the shelter of each other, the people survive.”  It’s a kind of life lesson I see often in other colonized communities, the understanding that without each other, we would not survive.  To give even when we have nothing, because we know what it is like to suffer.  It is that attitude that shines brightly in the people of Palestine even in the face of such atrocities they face today, and it is that same attitude that built the bond between the people of Ireland and the people of Palestine as well.

And as for Judaism - well, the entire reason I converted to Judaism in the first place was in part driven by the concept of Tikkun Olam - which means to heal the world.  It is our job to heal the world, to bring forth an age of peace.  While I sadly do not think we will live to see that age of peace, there are mitzvahs built into the religion that go right in hand with that seanfhocal.  Because again, without each other we would not make it in this world - and as the Mishnah says, “Deeds of giving are the very foundations of the world.”  

It is therefore just…strange to me when people seem surprised at my political beliefs.  Between my Irish heritage and the tenets of the faith that I chose and do not regret choosing, there truly was only one path for me, a path that I am by far not the first Jew to choose.  You see, for as long as there have been Zionist Jews - there have been Antizionist Jews as well.  It is not antisemitic to be against the colonial concept of Zionism, and I stand on the shoulders of many Jews who have known that as well from the very birth of the political identity itself, long before the government of Israel was created in 1948.  

Don’t get me wrong, Antisemitism absolutely is something that exists and should be treated with caution and care. But what I hear when I am accused of internalized antisemitism as an Antizionist is people telling me that fighting back against fascism, against colonialism apparently means I hate myself?  Which…is pretty false in my opinion.  I fight back against those things because I love myself and I love the people around me and I want a better world for all of us.  Fighting for a free Palestine does not mean any of us want Jews to die, it simply means we want Palestinians to be able to live free.  To have equal human rights and sovereignty in their homeland.  And it is a fight I personally know well as someone with Irish heritage.  

An Gorta Mor, the Great Hunger, is what many in Ireland call the potato famine.  Because it wasn’t a famine in actuality, it was forced starvation.  The English taxed us so severely that all we could really eat securely was potatoes - everything else we grew or raised was sent to England under armed guard as it was said to not belong to us.  So when the blight struck, we had no food we could eat - but we starved with food all around us.  If someone dared to eat something that had been grown on the land they lived on but deemed a taxed good, they were punished for it.

It was a targeted genocide, we were blamed for the blight and told it was our fault we didn’t have any food.  Aid was denied to us, because it was decreed no one could donate more than Queen Victoria lest you make her look bad.  The King of Turkey tried to donate much, much more to help - and that aid was blocked.  It is a parallel we see today in the aid from Turkey being blocked from getting into Gaza, and the forced starvation imposed on the people in Gaza despite the ability of so many of us to provide food for them if only we could get it into the strip.  There is a deep, old sort of pain that lives in me over this especially, a generational trauma that cries for those suffering the same thing my ancestors did.  My great-grandmother came through Ellis Island after the manmade famine, she was raised by people who suffered through that genocide and survived.  Those epigenetics live in me, and I know that those who survive this genocide in Palestine will be passing on similar epigenetics to their descendants as well against their will.

It is that generational trauma, those epigenetics, that led me down the path I am on today though.  I faced pretty firm pressure to assimilate into Zionist thought when I converted and shortly after.  I was told I was now indigenous to the levant simply because I am Jewish - which I am very much not.  Are there jews who are indigenous to that area of the world?  Yes, absolutely - just as there are indigenous muslims and indigenous christians.  But my homeland is Ireland and converting to Judaism does not change that.  My own ancestors faced similar assimilation here in America and they chose wrong out of a need for survival - choosing to toe the company line and buy into the status quo in America that prioritized whiteness over any other culture.  They abandoned their own heritage in a lot of ways to do so, as well, so that they could homogenize into that white identity.

I always promised myself that should I find myself facing the same sort of pressure, I would choose better.  And here I am, having kept that promise.  History repeats itself and it often rhymes - and we are made better by learning from the rights and wrongs of our ancestors so that we may do better going forward, so that we may plant seeds of justice and improvement for the generations after us.

There is a Jewish story that touches on this very concept, on leaving things better for the generations after us.  It’s called Honi the Circle Maker and the carob tree.  Honi the Circle Maker was a Jewish scholar in antiquity who was known for being able to draw a circle and step inside of it to recite special prayers that brought forth miracles.  One day, Honi was walking on a road and saw an old man planting a Carob tree.  He asked the man “How long will it take for this tree to bear fruit?”  The old man replied “Seventy years.”  Honi then asked the man “And do you think you will live another Seventy years and eat the fruit of this tree?”  The old man answered “Perhaps not.  However, when I was born into this world, I found many carob trees planted by my father and grandfather.  Just as they planted trees for me, I am planting trees for my children and grandchildren so they will be able to one day eat the fruit of these trees.”

This is one of my favorite stories I’ve had the privilege of learning because it strikes a chord with me, drives me to keep going and work hard to plant seeds for a better future for those who come after.  By fighting for the living, by being loud and strong and firm in our stance that Palestine deserves to be free - we plant those seeds of change.  Regardless of the outcome, we make sure no one can deny that we were here and we were on the right side of history, and that will inspire generations to come.  

I would like to leave you with a quote by Mark Twain, though some of you may or may not recognize it from a Captain America comic that borrowed from Mr.Twain.  

“It doesn’t matter what the press says.  It doesn’t matter what the politicians or the mobs say.  It doesn’t matter if the whole country decides that something wrong is something right.  Republics are founded on one principle above all else: the requirement that we stand up for what we believe in, no matter the odds or consequences.

When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth and tell the whole world: No.  You move.”

Thank you, and Free Palestine

[eowynstwin]

I don't know if this is an overstep so if it is feel free to ignore this but do you have any tips on how to write for Soap? I have a few things down already but i feel like I'm not getting his character right. Thank you <3 (love you work btw hoping things are better for you)

I’m kind of surprised I’m being asked this since I really haven’t written for Soap all that much! I do have a few things I think are important for writing him, which I put into practice when I consider his character and also gravitate toward in reading fic about him. This turned out to be kind of long, sorry lol.

I tend to break Soap down into certain specific traits: he is outgoing, he is provocative, he is compassionate, and he is self-sacrificing.

Outgoing—we see, constantly, that he’s the one offering his hand to shake, that he’s the one asking other people questions about themselves. He does his best to learn Spanish to talk to Rudy and Alejandro. He saves Ghost a seat on the transport in the very first mission of MW2. Soap is warm and friendly, always eager to talk to people and learn about them. He is absolutely the extroverted friend every introvert needs to feel comfortable leaving their safe space to explore the world at large, and he’s happy to be that friend too.

Provocative—Soap likes to push buttons. Nothing shows this more than his interactions with Ghost; “Actually he prefers to be called—”, “The mask…take it off,” “Are you ugly?” And so on. He is willing to say things other people might find less than tactful because of that outgoing nature of his. He isn’t shy about things other people might politely avoid. He does not, of course, cross significant lines; he doesn’t presume to actually tell Ghost what he thinks of the mask. I think this is because Soap is very good at taking the metaphorical temperature of his dynamic with other people—he can see where a boundary might be, and test how permeable that boundary is without outright violating it.

Compassionate—he does not provoke to cause trouble. Soap cares, deeply, both about his comrades and what is right. He’s the one to ask about the families driven out of the cartel compound they search through for Hassan. He’s the one to remember that Alejandro and Los Vaqueros are still on the oil rig before they blow the second missile, and he’s the one to warn them to get clear (I’m pretty sure). Soap likes people very much, and believes in their inherent worth. It’s why he manages to crack through Ghost’s armor; he is not shallow in his efforts to bond with the lieutenant. He actually cares enough to make the effort.

Self-sacrificing—because of Soap’s wealth of compassion, we see that he’s willing to put himself at risk for the greater good. He volunteers to go into Diego’s manor alone to find El Sin Nombre, and he chases after Hassan in Chicago after nearly getting blown up to stop the missile from reaching DC. He is cavalier with his own personal safety, and I think he might also be a little reckless with his own well-being in favor of getting a job done. After all, almost all of his campaign skins have him wearing a brace on one knee, and let’s not forget that he fucking GOT SHOT and kept going anyway without treatment. I think Soap doesn’t really pay great attention to his own pain, because he thinks outwardly; his main consideration is for others, not himself, even to his own detriment.

So those four things are what I’d consider foundational traits for writing Soap! I think they are excellent lodestones to return to if you get lost in trying to figure out how to characterize him. It’s easy to reduce him to bumbling comic relief (and I think that has, in part, something to do with him being Scottish, as Scot characters often suffer reductive treatment), but he can be richly complex given enough consideration.

[bloodyarn]

𝕆ℂ 𝕄𝔼𝕄𝔼

tagged by @anderwelt [ You are absolutely crazy but I love a challenge so lesgo !!! ]

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꒰ 𝗕𝐀𝐒𝐈𝐂𝐒 ꒱ 

Full name: Babette Adeline Ziromzu Gender: Female Sexuality: Bisexual + Biromantic Pronouns: She/her

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꒰ 𝐎𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑 ꒱ 

Birthplace: Baldur's Gate Job: Seamstress Phobias: Everything with more than four legs. She is the token example of someone who hates bugs. Spiders and moths are her arch nemesis.  Guilty pleasures: Gossiping and sweet baked goods. Combine both and you make her day.

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꒰ 𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐀𝐋𝐒 ꒱

Alignment: Lawful good.

Sins:

Aimless: Babette never really learned to do her own thing besides following orders or occasionally working on own little projects in the past. The first thing she wanted to do after the Nautiloid accident is to go home because she was shit scared of what to do else. Imagine a house cat suddenly dropped off in the wild and having to figure things out. She only knows how to be a seamstress, thus her goal was and is reaching the city. Blue-eyed: Oftentimes, she refuses to believe one would have only ill intentions. She gives chances way too often and wouldn't it be for her companions, this most likely would have cost her her head in the past.  Impressionable: You can talk her into almost anything. Refusing commands only led to bad outcomes in her childhood. One example would be when the party arrives at the Gate and meets their first Steel Watcher, Babette was pretty much convinced it was a great idea and a wonderful change to have these machines walking around the city. Even after destroying the facility, she was sure Gortash had good intentions in making the city safer. She is a bit slow . . .

Virtues:

Forgiving: The kind of good part of being blue-eyed is that she does not hold a grudge for too long. She can very much be explossive if someone did her wrong but the girl is not one to not accept an apology. Compassionate: Compassion was a huge deal in her childhood. Her sisters had to stick together, a friendship of seven that was even bound by blood. Caring for others and helping them out comes naturally.  Polite: Babette comes from a rich family. Politeness is her bread and butter. She even worked at the shopfront for a long time before turning into a hexblood and has exceptional negotiation skills.

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꒰ 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐎𝐑 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 ꒱

Introvert / Extrovert

Organized / Disorganized

Close-minded / Open-minded

Calm / Anxious / Restless

Disagreeable / Agreeable / In between

Cautious / Reckless / In between

Patient / Impatient / In between

Outspoken / Reserved / In between

Leader / Follower / Flexible

Empathetic / Unempathetic / In between

Optimist / Pessimist / Realist

Traditional / Modern / In between

Hard-working / Lazy

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꒰ 𝐑𝐄𝐋𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐏𝐒 ꒱

This is a hard one since I did not create Babette with shipping intent. The following answers are my gut feeling and what I imagine could be cute. The ships are in nor specific order, just babbling about it. Why I definitely ship her with non canon muses from BG3, I will only name canon characters here.

OTP:

✮ Gale :  You can tell me what you want but they would click in my opinion. Not knowing how to handle his whole Mystra problem at first, he would still have an open ear that listens to his problems unconditionally. Funnily enough, Babsi would remind Gale to take things easy after every fight because of the orb, not entirely understanding how it works but still trying to be of help. It would probably often end up in conversations like ❝Hey, it's alright, I can lift this myself.❞ ❝Oh, but the ORB Gale. Better safe than sorry. I help you.❞. What only fuels this whole ship is that Gale is the token husband her mother always told her children about. He is smart, kind, polite, influential. This definitely plays a big role in her preferences too. Godhood would be sad and hard. I don't think Babette would try and talk him out of it. He often sounds reasonable, and if the best outcome is becoming god, in his opinion, she will nod like ❝Oh you have a point, that makes sense.❞. Yes, it would break something inside her but who is she to object? He is the smart guy. ⚔︎ Wyll : She is a hopeless romantic. Wyll would have the easiest fucking game. The woman never learned how to dance - perfect opportunity to bond. And oh dear lord would she bond. She could also relate to a degree with his family problems, ending up feeling a huge amount of empathy for Wyll and invested in helping him where she can. What many people (somehow) judge him for is that he is so untruthful in the beginning. Not a big deal for her. That girl won't call him out, she understands very well. Hells, when babette joins, she is disguised as a tiefling herself for the first few long rests, fearing to be treated differently if people found out about her pact and her hexblood ancestry. I feel strongly about them.

Acceptable Ships:

🗡 Astarion : Obviously a  good contenter. Girl is easily manipulable which makes her a perfect target in act 1 but I think the whole plot between them can turn out awfully sweet when the journey goes on. Babette canonically also volunteers to being a bloodbank after Tav found out about him being a vampire spawn for the group's sake lmao. Not because she finds the idea hot, just so Astarion doesn't have to be hungry. ⛓ Karlach :  Babette can easily fall victim to the big lady's confidence and the charm that lies behind it. Since touch is a huge thing for her in a relationship, romantic or not, she would be more than eager to try and figure out how to handle the infernal engine and the whole Avernus spiel. There is also just a huge itch that is being scratced about big strong woman and petite small one. Imagine the huuugsss *melts* *like litererally because Karlach, ya know ya know?* Note: Ships don't only have to be companions. I just picked them to keep it clean and consistent. I am a huge sucker for clashing personalities. Gortash for example could be interesting, since she is awfully easy to manipulate. Volo is more of a crackship but still awfully fun to think about! Apparently Rolan made it into the roster too [thanks Bean ig uwu']. If you want me to write some more about it feel free to boop me :)

OT3: Babette does not really enjoy the idea of polygamy so I will leave this blank :x

Brotp:

ฅ Minsc: Bimbo and himbo. These two share one single braincell and would be seen talking and theorizing about the most mundane shit. She would always call him first when there is a big bug in her tent and I believe he would be elated to help on this mighty quest. They are both not the brightest in the most charming way possible. Babette would be around his tent a whole lot just to hear about battles and stories.

Notp: Wulbren Bongle >:( We hate Wulbren Bongle in this household.

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꒰ 𝗕𝐀𝐂𝐊𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐘 ꒱

Let me just ctrl + v the backstory here :3c

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𝐏𝐀𝐒𝐓[ ✂ ] [CW: Child labor]

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝘆𝐨𝘂𝐧𝐠𝐞𝘀𝘁 𝐨𝐟 𝘀𝐞𝘃𝐞𝐧 𝘀𝐢𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠𝘀. Babette was born into a strict family. Playing outside like her peers, getting dirty in puddles on the street after summer rains, nothing that she could afford. It was her own mother, who treated their children like workers, teaching them knitting, crocheting, sewing only to prepare them to ’help out the family’. Both of her parents endured a childhood in poverty. It was their way of keeping the family’s life standards above average, no matter the cost.

The girl had trouble, picking up the family’s craft. Never terrible but never perfect either. A wrong stitch here, a forgotten button on a vest, keep your gods damned head together ! Why couldn’t she be as good as her sisters ? Why does mother threaten to send her off, send her to an orphanage, if kind enough ?

No matter how long Babette practiced, time only rewarded her with more bloody pokes in her hands. Clumsy. Slow. Lazy.

A hag got wind from the girl’s troubles and bitter thoughts. Babette’s fears enlightened, amused the fey. Sweet-talking her way into the child’s heart, feigning compassion, offering solutions, quick ones. One of their circle was killed recently. A replacement was needed. If the young lady would agree to a pact, she would gain impeccable skills in her craft. Everyone would be enticed by her future works, the needle like a brush to the artist. Only a small touch of her own body, a hair, a droplet of blood in her work, would do the trick. In return, the seamstress would comply to turn into a hag, one of the arch fey’s kin, in time.

And the desperation cried louder than the girl’s common sense. The need for admiration, for praise, was too much to bear living without it any longer.

Babette left the forest with a crown.

A token of her pact.

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𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐄𝐍𝐓

𝐀𝘁 𝐟𝐢𝗿𝘀𝘁, 𝘁𝐡𝐢𝘀 𝐛𝐚𝗿𝐠𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝘄𝐢𝘁𝐡 𝘁𝐡𝐞 𝐚𝗿𝐜𝐡𝐟𝐞𝘆 𝘄𝐚𝘀𝐧'𝘁 𝐛𝐚𝐝; 𝐧𝐨𝘁 𝐚𝘁 𝐚𝐥𝐥. The pact altered the girl's appearance; hair & skin now holding a soft lavender tone, pale and almost sickly. The eldercross around her head now one with her body. Hers, just like the fey blood pumping through her veins. After the first shock settled when returning to her family, it didn't take long for her parents to see the potential of their youngest child. Only by attaching something from Babette, sewing in a hair between fabric, the craft would carry a mesmerizing touch. Clearly, anything would sell now. Obviously, the nestling was a pot of gold.

Did she really have the privilege to argue about it now ? About that exploit, which only got worse because of decisions, made with her own intentions ?

Her work for her family continued, happy to help, happy to be needed at least. It was . . . strangely nice.

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𝐀𝐅𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐍𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐈𝐋𝐎𝐈𝐃 𝐂𝐑𝐀𝐒𝐇

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝘄𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐝𝐢𝐝𝐧'𝘁 𝗿𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝗿 𝘁𝐡𝐞 𝐡𝐨𝘄𝘀, 𝘁𝐡𝐞 𝘄𝐡𝘆𝘀, 𝘁𝐡𝐞 𝘄𝐡𝐞𝗿𝐞𝘀. Stranded, far away from her hometown, she found herself at shore. The devastating pulsing inside her head, the twirling of her vision, the nausea. Everything was scary. Not only that, but finding herself anywhere else instead of home made her anxious. Her appearance could easily be identified as a hag in the making, her reason why she disguised herself as long as needed.

Following a group of tiefling refugees on their way to the Emerald Grove, Babette blended in marvelously. From there, the hexblood would have to find a way to Baldur's Gate. The thought about . . . returning . . . seemed strange. An awkward stir and turn. It inflicts worry and second thoughts. Maybe This was a sign. Maybe it was just foolish.

Whatever the future brings, it is inevitable anyway.She should stop thinking and start following her instincts.

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I am not tagging anyone but feel free to do it too! It was awfully fun and I most likely will link this somewhere in my pinned. ♥

[blackcatruse]

𝔣𝔯𝔬𝔪 𝔞𝔰𝔥𝔢𝔰

«prev. ❃ next» ❃ first chapter ❃ m.list ❃ ao3 pairing: r. haitani/fem!reader ↳ she/her, fem descriptors, nickname ❃ chapter synopsis: you must've hit your head real hard, because why the fuck is rindou being considerate towards you? that's weirder than the people trying to get you. word count: 3.9k chapter cw(s): swearing, possible ooc, brief stalking, depiction of a panic attack, depiction of suicide a/n: please enjoy! <3

You weren’t sure how much time had passed from when Genbu dragged you out to when you woke up. Instead you slowly opened your bleary eyes and found yourself in the infirmary of the main base. The lights were too bright, you needed to turn them off. Shielding your eyes, you struggled to sit up and winced as the rustling of the thin sheet reverberated in your brain.

The sound of the privacy curtain sliding open grated on your already pounding head. “Hey, take it easy,” a soft feminine voice cautioned you.

“The lights,” you whimpered. It sounded so pathetic. Was that you?

Heels clicked, the lights dimmed, and your eyes weren’t as achey. When you blinked them open, they focused on Wuxing’s private doctor. She was probably the only person in Wuxing you liked.

“You gave us a bit of a scare, Lotus,” Miko chuckled. You watched the tattoo wrapped around her throat bob.

Trying to find words and put them together coherently was a struggle. Getting the words out was nearly impossible. So you just stared at Miko and hoped you looked confused enough.

“Let me guess, you want to know how long you were out?” she asked.

You started to nod but immediately stopped when it felt like your brain was throbbing. Your neck felt tense.

“It’s been about twenty-four hours,” Miko said. “You wouldn’t wake up no matter what, so I opted to let you rest. You took quite the beating there. I was almost worried you’d be in a coma or there would be some kind of extensive damage. Seems like you’ve got a hard head, though.”

You sighed.

“Yeah, that was a bad joke. Point aside, I am glad you’re awake. You’re gonna be hurting for a bit and I told Suzaku you weren’t allowed to do any jobs for at least a week. I need you to stay for observation just a bit longer, and when I’m no longer worried, I’ll send you home.” Miko smiled at you and you wondered what brought her into this kind of life.

Her charming disposition was at odds with literally everyone else in Wuxing. She kept quiet about her life, just laughing and brushing off any questions. Nobody even knew her last name. The only thing anyone knew was that Miko was an actual doctor before she started working for Wuxing. Rumors always floated around, but you didn’t think much of it. She had always patched you up kindly and that’s all you cared about. The amount of compassion in her dark eyes always struck you as odd, given the company she kept.

You stopped thinking before your brain exploded. Gingerly you leaned back down on the bed, not fully horizontal, but reclined enough to be comfortable.

“Don’t worry about falling asleep or anything,” Miko told you. “I’m monitoring all your vitals and your imaging came back okay. We’ll talk again when you wake up.”

Miko’s gentle smile that wrinkled the corners of her eyes was the last thing you saw before you sank into unconsciousness again.

Miko allowed you to go home the next day. She told you to take some ibuprofen when you needed it and if anything happened to call her. She also said that you weren’t supposed to do any rigorous tasks for the next two weeks or you’d risk exacerbating your symptoms. At least it’d keep Suzaku off your back. Knowing your luck, that job with the Haitanis was going to happen before you had fully recuperated.

Speaking of the bastards, you had several text messages waiting for you on your private burner phone. Kakucho had given both brothers the number, which made sense, but it did annoy you. The more people who knew it, the more troublesome it could be. Maybe you were paranoid, but luck was seldom on your side.

Unfortunately, your concussion meant you couldn’t just throw yourself down on your ratty couch without making the dull ache worse. You sat gently and leaned back, tilting your head so that your neck rested on the back of the couch. Without looking at the screen, you dialed the last number that texted you. As it rang, you ran through a possible script in your head, but when Rindou picked up everything you were going to say left your head.

“Why the hell haven’t you answered?” His irritation was palpable and you wanted to reach through the phone and strangle him.

“Whatever happened to a normal ‘hi, how are you’,” you grumbled. “Look, I got fuckin’ concussed okay? Just got cleared to go home today. Kinda couldn’t get to the phone.” You could almost hear his eyes roll and you smirked to yourself. “I’ve got one more thing to annoy you,” you added. “I can’t do anything strenuous for like the next two weeks. Doctor’s orders.”

A sigh was the only response you got. “You’re lucky the job was delayed a bit then,” Rindou told you. “Scoping shit out shouldn’t be too taxing on you. When would you want to go?”

You blinked a few times, trying to make sense of what you heard. You expected Rindou to tell you to suck it up and deal with it. How were you supposed to act right now? “Uh,” you said stupidly. “Sorry, I honestly don’t know. Day after tomorrow? Let me rest today and tomorrow and I think I’ll be okay to plot things.”

“I’ll call you then. Rest up.” And the line clicked.

What? What was that entire conversation? It didn’t go the way you were expecting based on your previous interactions with Rindou. He hung up before you could even ask him what the fuck his angle was. You’d have to save it for when he called next. Or... maybe you shouldn’t. Maybe that’s what he wanted. Maybe he was messing with you. Well, two could play that game. You wouldn’t react or bring it up. It’ll be like it never happened.

Except it did happen. And it wouldn’t leave your mind. For the next two days you agonized over this weird feeling in your gut. Was it because someone gave a shit about your health? That’s what you had chalked it up to. You weren’t used to someone actually taking your condition into consideration. Should you thank him for that? Would that be weird? Actually, why did you care what he thought? Still, everything about the conversation felt... well, maybe you weren’t sure how you felt.

Tugging on your jacket and boots, you were preparing to meet Rindou at a coffee shop near the cargo terminal. He’d called earlier that day to give you the address and time. He’d even asked about your head, and again, it had shocked you into silence. The pain was starting to ease up, and ibuprofen nearly made it all go away. It wasn’t anything you hadn’t dealt with before. You supposed it was only a matter of time before you got head trauma given how much people’s fists seemed to like your face. To think that a concrete floor was the thing that would do you in.

At least the swelling at your temple had gone down. Bruises were still an ugly shade of purple that you had to desperately try to hide. The crappy foundation you owned did such a poor job, but it was better than nothing. That’s what you kept telling yourself.

You left your apartment, wondering if it was okay to take your bike to the meeting spot. It would be a short drive and a much, much longer walk given your condition. You thought about calling Miko to ask, but you ultimately decided that would be a bad idea. She’d probably yell at you, and if anyone was going to set her off, it would probably be you. You started to shake your head to stop the pity party, but you immediately stopped as the world spun a little more. You steadied yourself against the wall and waited for the dizziness to pass. “Fuck,” you spat under your breath.

You couldn’t just bail last minute. Kakucho wanted the routes planned far in advance. The delay in shipping meant that you should be okay to do the job without having to worry about your head. Still, you didn’t feel like you were in a position to tell Rindou you had to do it another day because of a headache.

Minimizing your problems was a specialty of yours. If you ignored them hard enough, then everything was fine. They’ve exploded in your face a few times, but you had gotten better at tamping everything down. Push it to the side and tell it to wait its turn to beat you up. While you were working with Wuxing and any gangs in Tokyo, you couldn’t afford to let emotions or physical pain stop you. You weren’t known for your weakness, and you weren’t about to let any chinks in the armor break it apart entirely.

You took a shaky breath to ground yourself and kept on moving. It wasn’t until you were about halfway down the route that you thought about what would happen if you passed out. The bike’s usual purr sounded like a roar vibrating in your skull. Your helmet felt far too tight and your jaw ached from how tightly your teeth were clenched. Keep pushing onward, you told yourself. Once this is done you can relax for the rest of your mandated break.

You didn’t anticipate it taking long. You’d gotten blueprints of the yard layout yesterday and knew the drop off and pick up locations. There were a few good structures you could get behind and stay out of the way. There would be a few areas where the lights didn’t reach that you wanted to look at. Hopefully shipping containers wouldn’t interfere with those potential spots. Regardless, you were good at this part of your job. Planning routes was actually something you enjoyed. It felt good to piece together the parts of the puzzle. Every other runner under Suzaku hated that chore, so they would just give their maps to you. If you had one redeeming trait among Suzaku’s division, it was that you were great at figuring out the best ways to stay hidden.

As you neared the location, you could see Rindou’s silhouette outside of the cafe. The warm yellow lights lit up the admittedly pretty features of his face. He might be irritating and a member of a rival gang, but you weren’t blind. He barely turned as he heard you approach.

You parked your bike and made your way over. You watched his eyes flick down and back up. “You look like shit,” he told you.

“Thanks,” you deadpanned. “Good evening to you, too, jackass.”

The both of you stared at each other, the tense silence was on the verge of being uncomfortable. Neither of you wanted to speak first, but you weren’t sure if it was stubbornness or pride or some secret other third thing.

Rindou cracked first. “Alright,” he said, motioning with his head, “the terminal is a little ways that way. I found a decent entry point that we can use to get by the guards.”

“Sweet, let’s go,” you said, immediately going that way. Your head had gone from a dull ache to a steady pounding and the last thing you wanted was to collapse like a bitch in front of Rindou fucking Haitani of all people.

Shoving his hands in his pockets, he kept up with your pace easily, long, languid strides matching the quick march you had. You didn’t talk, and you weren’t sure what was worse—an awkward quiet or a stiff conversation. Rindou didn’t look inclined to chitchat either, which was fine by you.

Out of habit, your eyes scanned the buildings around you. The sun was dipping below the horizon and long shadows stretched over the alleys and sidewalks you traversed. There wasn’t too much out of the ordinary, a few couples on a date night, some coworkers at a bar, and the occasional straggler. You and Rindou wouldn’t stand out too much, provided nobody recognized one of the Kings of Roppongi.

A coy part of yourself wondered what these strangers would see when they looked at you and him. Would they assume you were dating? Part of you entertained the idea, and the other part of you beat that one back. No. You were not going to develop a stupid crush on anyone, especially not Rindou. Actually, it was sad how quickly you attached yourself to the first person to show sincere kindness. Pathetic. That’s exactly what you were. You came into this life alone and you would leave this life alone. That’s what you had come to terms with and refused to think of anything else. Would you even know how to be a person? No clue.

As the crowd thinned, you were aware of a presence. You didn’t outright turn around. Instead you looked at Rindou like you were going to tell him something when you saw someone duck into an alley a few meters behind you. Suspicious, but you didn’t let it get to you yet.

“What’s with that look?” Rindou asked you.

“It’s nothing,” you whispered quickly. “I just thought I heard something.”

“You sure you’re up to this?” Rindou asked, his concern masked by annoyance. You didn’t miss the sincerity that flashed briefly in his eyes before it was replaced with a calculating calm.

“Yeah, it’s fine,” you insisted. You wondered if you were seeing things. “How much longer do you think?”

“At this pace? Probably fifteen minutes or so.”

“Gotcha.” The slight nod you tried to give made your head protest. You grimaced, but didn’t give any other indication.

You continued on, pretending not to know about the person following you. You didn’t want to make it obvious, but you were absolutely certain now that you weren’t just seeing things. Quick thinking had you throw yourself at Rindou, wrapping your arms tightly around one of his. You felt him stiffen and he glared at you.

“What the hell—”

“Someone’s tailing us,” you whispered. “Just act like we’re a couple or something and check my six. Don’t stop walking. Don’t draw attention.”

Rindou leaned down close enough for his lips to brush the top of your head. You prayed desperately that he didn’t see the red crawl up your cheeks. From a distance it would probably look like a sweet gesture between lovers, but his eyes weren’t on you. They were searching for the person you’d mentioned. You knew exactly when he caught sight of the stranger because of how his body twitched. Was he fighting the urge to go attack this guy or something?

You decided to ad lib something. “C’mon babe,” you whined, just loud enough for the stranger to hear. “You said it wasn’t that far.”

Oh if looks could kill, you’d be a blood spatter on the wall behind you. But Rindou caught on fast. “I know, I know. Just a little bit further. I promise it’s worth it.”

“It better be,” you pouted. You let go of his arm and tried not to react when his hand gently touched your waist, pulling you a little closer to him.

“How the hell did you notice him?” Rindou whispered.

“You’ve clearly never been a woman walking around at night,” you muttered back. You looked him in the eyes, challenging him to break the act.

Yet Rindou said nothing. He just grunted noncommittally. You bumped into him lightly with your shoulder, trying to make it appear affectionate. You forgot that he was somehow a shit brick house underneath the baggy clothes he wore. He didn’t even react to your shove. Instead his arm moved from your waist to drape itself around your shoulders. You got the feeling he was refusing to let you one up him in this charade.

As you passed by another alley Rindou swiftly pulled you around the corner. You yelped and forced it to turn into a shy laugh. “What are you doing?” you hissed.

He’d trapped you between the brick wall and his body, hands pressed firmly on the wall behind you. Both your faces were red, but you didn’t comment on it. You could feel your heartbeat in your head. He leaned in close, his breath warm on your ear. “When he tries to sneak up on us, run,” he ordered. “We’ll split up and reconvene.”

The thought of running made you pale. With your head the way it was, you were just asking to be picked off. “Where?” you whispered urgently.

Footsteps sounded close and you both froze. Anyone passing by would assume it was a young couple that couldn’t resist each other. But you knew better. The person following you both probably knew better. You hadn’t the slightest clue who the hell would be stalking you like this, but you had a sinking feeling that the trap from a few nights ago was likely connected.

“I think they’re after me,” you said hurriedly. “When we split up, if they follow me, act like you’re getting a decent distance away, but instead circle back and get them. If they follow you…”

“I’ll still catch them,” Rindou said with a smirk. He leaned in close as if to sell the act just as the stranger rounded the corner.

You shrieked like you weren’t expecting them, and in the moment the person had startled, Rindou grabbed your hand and started running. God your head was going to fall off at this rate. You kept pace but made the mistake of looking back. Something glinted in their hands and he was going to catch up.

The alley connected with others like a familiar labyrinth and as you approached a split, Rindou called out to you, “Go!”

Ignoring the stabbing pain in your skull, you sprinted to the right and Rindou took the left. A second set of steps followed you and you no longer had any doubt. This person was connected to the people who tried to kidnap you. Unfortunately, your path led to a dead end. Great. Just great. That would happen to you.

The sound of a boot scraping against the pavement had you turning to face your pursuer. It was a man, you couldn’t see much except his uncannily wide eyes. He wore a face mask and kept his hood up, which didn’t cover the stringy bits of hair falling into his face. Instinctively, you took a step back. Your eyes flicked to the knife in his hand and you felt your blood run cold. Shit. You still backed up, trying not to trip over discarded trash bags. The man approached you slowly, knowing you were trapped.

You tried to stare him down to get him to back off, but he didn’t. You winced as your head decided that it had had enough action today. You heard the man lunge and braced yourself for the sharp pain of being stabbed. But it never came.

There was a thud and when you opened your eyes, you saw Rindou pinning the guy down. A foot was planted firmly on his back with his arm twisted back and up. It didn’t look comfortable, but the man didn’t try to throw off Rindou at all.

“Who the hell are you?” Rindou spat.

Instead of begging and struggling like a normal person, the man started laughing. It sounded like something that was pretending to be human—high pitched and on the verge of effervescent. Was this dude on something right now?

Fuck, your head was killing you too much for you to be useful. You didn’t want to appear weak, but your body was about to take control from you and make you pass out. You tried to steady yourself, but the world wouldn’t stop spinning. Closing your eyes would only make it worse, so you looked down at the man Rindou had captive.

Eyes too wide and pupils a pinpoint, the man stared straight at you as he giggled. “I see, I see,” he spoke with an eerie singsong, a manic grin spreading across his face. “Yes, yes. I knew you were familiar.”

You didn’t know who this was. You didn’t want to think about the possibility of how he knew you. It was getting harder and harder to push down the panic that bubbled in your chest. “What the fuck do you want?” you demanded, your voice cracking. “Who the hell are you?!”

You didn’t see the way Rindou was staring at you. You were too caught up drowning in the sea of emotions you kept trying to drain. It was spilling over, bleeding into your racing thoughts.

“Who I am is not important,” the man chuckled. “They told me about you. Something pure that ended up in a world she doesn’t belong in. The ones who put their hands on you corrupted you.” His voice had turned into a soft coo.

You were shaken to the core. Who the hell was this? What the fuck was he saying? You wanted to throw up.

“Yes, yes, you do not belong here. You were not supposed to be a part of this, but—”

When your brother’s name fell from the stranger’s mouth, you were plunged into ice water. There was a ringing in your ears and everything aside from your racing heart was muffled. The air was too heavy. Your body moved on its own as you lashed a foot out, kicking the man right in the teeth. Your panic only served to lessen the blow to him, as you were just frantic to get him to shut up. 

Fuck. Fuck. This wasn’t good. You could barely hear Rindou call out to you as you staggered back against the wall. You put a hand to your face and it was as if your entire body wasn’t yours. You were falling. Sinking. Losing every bit of armor you had stitched together.

The stranger just stared at you with lips spread wide over bloody teeth. You watched his jaw flex and move. It looked like he was biting down on something. You realized far too late what was happening.

Moments felt like years, and you watched as the man started seizing. Rindou immediately let go of him with a swear. Slowly time came back to you, and the man stilled. His empty gaze still bore through you.

Were you breathing? You weren’t sure. There was a familiar tightness in your chest and your fingertips tingled. You wanted to curl up and disappear into the ground. There wasn’t a chance in hell you were going to regain your composure. You’d cracked in the worst place possible in front of the worst person possible. Fuck.

You wiped your eyes viciously, trying to stop the tears from falling. But it was useless.

“Lotus.” You heard a voice. “Breathe, c’mon. Deep breaths.”

You could only gasp. Your eyes registered Rindou kneeling in front of you, but your brain didn’t quite finish the connection. The noise you made was absolutely pathetic. Desperate and feral. Nobody had ever seen you like this, and you had hoped nobody ever would. But too much had happened in the last few days. Everything was going to shit and the weight finally crushed you.

A gentle hand touched your shoulder and your body reacted violently. “Don’t,” you choked out.

The hand dropped. “Hey, you’re okay. You need to breathe or you’re gonna pass out. C’mon, just—”

Everything was fuzzy. You were so lightheaded. You couldn’t get control of your body back. You wished you could pass out faster so everything would just stop. 

Rindou had given up on you and he stood to call someone. You couldn’t make out the details. You just sat slumped against that wall, shaking uncontrollably.

Please do not reupload, translate, or steal my work! If it isn't here or on my ao3, it's not me! Likes & reblogs appreciated! <3 Dividers courtesy of @/cafekitsune & @/firefly-graphics

[riftdancing]

I'm back!

Question four! Blink Vaniro. Seemingly reformed raises a question. Does she miss any particular thing from her old life that she can't/shouldn't do now? Is there a scenario where she would go back, to whatever it was she was doing?

Disclaimer: I love writing flawed characters, but Blink one of my most flawed. I want to first and foremost remind those reading, Blink is a fictional character. Just because she thinks or feels one way should never be a reflection of my own thoughts, opinions, or feelings as her writer. Thank you.

I'll be blunt. Blink misses a LOT of things revolving around crime. Crime is easy. Its a simple solution to many situations if your moral compass is flexible enough and given the way she was raised (the daughter of a Sky Pirate Captain) hers certainly is.

Vaniro grew up with crime. In a lot of ways it was even habitual to her. In some minor situations the impulse is still there, despite her keeping it on a tight leash these days, and Rex keeping her on a tighter one. Originally Blink was a simple independent contractor for Firelight Trading Company. Whatever job she was given was accomplished with the rule being she would stay on the right side of the law, and the pay was damn good.

Later on, after a good amount of contracts with FTC, Blink signed on as full time employee. But, kind of like a tiger in a zoo, Blink requires enrichment if she's going to be staying on the right side of the law. Originally, she wasn't getting that enrichment. So, boredom began to set in, and when Blink gets bored she yearns for the mischief of crime.  It's like an itch she cannot scratch.  She wants to antagonize.  She wants to pick fights.  She wants to cause problems on purpose.

So when Rex challenged her one day (and disrespected her shortly thereafter), Blink with no tolerance for being disrespected, gave him one chance to turn it around before having the balls to walk out on his employment.  Which, by FTC standards, is pretty unheard of.  It's rare that someone tells Rex no, let alone quits.  To which it only further sparked his interest in her.  It made him want her.

Long story short, the two spent a few weeks playing cat and mouse, Rex with the intentions of dragging her back into his employ, and Blink flat out simply enjoying the chase whilst drawing up what intel she could on him.  (This is how these two flirt, though neither of them will admit it.)  This ended in a big brawl (more flirting) where the pair wound up absolutely destroying a bar in Kugane.  Rex bested Blink, something she's not used to, and in a lot of ways it made her realize there's a lot she could learn from him.

I won't go into the nitty gritty, but despite some of the themes I'm about to touch on I will say consent is paramount between Rexonus and Blink. No matter what act Vaniro might put on, especially being the tsundere she is, nothing she does for anyone is ever against her will. Which is funny because she thrives when she is working under a superior. I think I wrote it best during some roleplay between Rex and Blink where he called her a hound. ...Because truthfully, he's not wrong.

He was right. Vaniro was a hound. She was always another's dog. Her Father’s first, then Das’, even the Empire’s. When the leash was taken off, it was like she didn’t know what to do with herself. Sure, she had her own personal goals. Goals she’d achieved. But the last five odd years had been spent in a stalemate with herself. It was a crude way of putting it, but she couldn't argue the truth.

Listen. Blink is a boss woman in her own right. She doesn't take shit from anyone unless she wants to. It takes a very powerful, patient, and caring person to wind up filling the shoes of her superior. But that's when she's at her best. When there is someone there driving her to be better. Someone aiding in giving her purpose.

Rex stepped into those shoes. He's done a lot for her beyond that too. Thanks to Rex, Blink has been going to see Shiro frequently for therapy sessions. Sessions which have helped her grow more comfortable with the idea of letting people in rather than constantly pushing them away. Since becoming romantically involved with Rex and emotionally involved with the FTC staff, she's become a lot more healthy mentally. But this means she's developed attachments, and this woman would do anything for those attachments.

Like forsake a life of crime for their safety. Not that she'd ever admit it to any of them though.

:)