#Not even in an ‘all violence is ultimately pointless�� kind of way. Nothing anyone does holds any deeper meaning and everything is lip servi | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

luci-yabs · 4 years ago

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Hey can I rant to you about how I find the mono-focus on the very much human dominated forces of Chaos as the real bad guy of 40k to be honestly even worse than the Imperiaal focus? You know what I always wanted in 40k? Lizardmen, Alien Ogres, Space Dwarfs, Skaven, and some Vampire Counts to the Necrons’ Tomb Kings. In WHFB only three playable armies were human (five if you count the undead as human) and WHFB had a larger number of independent factions than 40k. Meanwhile in 40k about half of all the armies in the game are Imperial and another large chunk are the equally insufferable legions of Chaos as the two factions circlejerk over who is the more racist and xenophobic. While in FB you had the annoying emphasis on Chaos as the one true threat (which is increasingly being emphasised in 40k including the awful, awful retcons they want to do to the war in heaven where what was supposed to be the xenos equivalent to the horus heresy gets “akshually the real bad guy is chaos lawl” shoved into it), humanity was just a part of the struggle against it or other forces such as Undeath or the Greenskins. Not even the biggest part, with the High Elves, Lizardmen, and Dwarfs all bearing more of the burden than the Empire or Bretonnia. Meanwhile, while theoretically 40k is a setting where non-chaos bad guys are more relevant and more able to defeat Chaos and take over as the one; the non-humans actually do less. Chaos is the only bad guy faction allowed to have permanent wins, to be undefeatable without any asterisks marks and whose fanboys (including GW’s writing team) love to endlessly circlejerk about how opposing Chaos is useless because they’ll get you in the end. And how 40k is really about humanity’s inevitably doomed succumbing to Chaos and how the Chaos Space Marines and Daemons are the destined victors and blah-de-blah. Any time an effective counter to chaos is written about in any other faction’s lore; the Chaos favouratism gets to show with “akshually chaos overcomes this because phhbbbbbt” with eye-rolling descriptions of how Chaos overwhelms say; the Tyranid hive mind by scattering it with the great rift, or how the death guard can infect nurgle, or how actually Tzeentch only pretended to lose to the Eldar or how Slaanesh actually pulled a fast one over the T'au. Nobody is allowed to be more of a threat than the Chaos Space Marines and Daemons even though the former are literally a bunch of spoiled paramilitary stormtroopers salty about the Emperor saying they weren’t allowed to rule over normal humanity like god-kings and the latter have lore that is fifty million variations of “lol inevitable victory”. The Chaos Space Marines are so lacking in numbers, so incapable of large scale cooperation not riven with petty fratricidal personal rivalries, so bereft of a functional logistical train, and are lead by such an insufferable band of edgy cartoon villains that they should honestly be little more than a nuisance that the Imperium only focuses on because of their symbolic threat. An annoyance compared to the much more organised and vastly more numerous and far better at exponentially scaling up power of the Necrons, the Tyranids, or the Orks. One that is carrying out an empty, pointless rivalry sparked largely over a bunch of stormtroopers being furious about not being allowed to be kings. Wouldn’t it be more thematically meaningful and fit better into the cosmic horror that 40k wants to be if Chaos was actually mostly a symbolic threat that would be ignorable if the Imperium wasn’t still spooked over what amounted to an attempted religiously motivated military coup ten thousand years ago and that ultimately; this petty rivalry doesn’t matter? That the bitter hatred over Horus’ coup ultimately is meaningless in the face of the fact that this galaxy, this universe, has never belonged to humanity or anything spawned of it? Khorne may feed off the violence of humanity and many minor xenos species; but Gork and Mork are a far more pure form of warmongering and what we now know as the Greenskins are just the tip of the iceberg compared to what they can really do when the WAAAGH! gets rolling. Nurgle may be an infestation of humanity’s despair and inability to progress but the Tyranids are the cancer that will kill the universe itself. Tzeentch may be clever and ancient as the firstborn of Chaos; but the Necrons have plans stretching back to before even the very idea of Tzeentch came into being. And of course, unlike the Dark Elves; the Druklhari aren’t really a major villain or threat. Vect is just kind of an asshole in his own little corner, not one of the top big bads the way Malekith was. But nah instead we get CHAOSCHAOSCHAOSCHAOSCHAOS coupled with ADB and Reynolds’ bizarre (but in hindsight, given what we’re shown of Chaos; sensible) revelation that actually Chaos is even more racist than the Imperium. It leads to 40k’s central conflict being between Satanist Ethnonationalist AnCaps and TradCath Ethnonationalist Reactionaries. Creepy bloodthirsty edgelords versus Roman bust twitter pfps. None of the other villains are ever allowed to “usurp” Chaos’ place as “the real threat” and any time non-chaotic bad guys get a time to shine, the Chaos writers pitch a fit and force in awful reminders that Chaos is actually the real threat behind everything and can never ever lose. It makes Chaos come off less as an interesting villain and more of a childish edgelord fantasy written by a bunch of kids who go “nuh uh!” everytime they take the L or insinuate that spikelord edgy mcgee is anything less than the coolest bad guy ever made. The fandom makes fun of Abaddon because he textually hasn’t really done much in thirteen tries? Well actually retcon in some outlandishly complicated super duper secret plan so that he and his army of *checks notes* less than one million racist storm troopers in ancap colours are actually totally the greatest threat in the setting and not the vastly more organised Tyranids or more tactically competent Necrons or the more numerous Orks. People still make fun of abaddon because he looks like a goofy mook rather than an awesome overlord (at least Archaon looks like someone you’d immediately figure for as the big bad of a setting; Abaddon looks more like…the real bad guy’s stupid but strong brute muscle enforcer)? Have an entire novel series written to squee about how awesome and cool he is which literally none of the other “big bad” factions’ primary characters have ever gotten. Also I am sick to death of how GW pushes Khorne as the unbeatable poster bad boy of the entire setting over and above even the rest of Chaos. Yeah his aesthetic is simple, marketable, and he’s incredibly easy to write into plots (even if I think there’s never been more interesting takes on Khorne where he’s shown as actually capable of cleverness in the pursuit of maximising mindless death and destruction as we see in Dawn of War 1 and Dawn of War 2 Retribution; where the Khornate villains have an impressively clever scheme even if the end goal is just “kill people”) and you can explain his concept to anyone. Please stop trying to throw him into literally everything and let other bad guys have even a little bit of spotlight. Octarius and Armageddon? Khorne crashes the party. Tzeentch threatens Luna? Well akshually Khorne invades Terra, take that nerds. Where does Khorne even get all these worshippers to yeet themselves into every warzone in existence when he probably offers the least to his followers that most people would want?

So on some points I agree with you, others I disagree, and in some places I understand the general feeling you’re conveying but am not quite so vitriolic.

Yes; I wish 40k as a setting was more akin to WHFB and AoS in that it permitted more factions to matter. 40k is, I agree, so myopic in it’s focus that it becomes frustrating. If the other factions weren’t playable I would understand, certainly, but if you’re going to offer players a chance to invest in the Xenos factions but then just never give them any return on that investment it feels like nothing more than lying to people.

Similarly; I also wish we saw more of a non-Human (and even then more of a non-Chaos Space Marine) component to Chaos. I find it hard to take Chaos seriously as a universal force when, over their supposedly non-linear/infinite period of existence they seem to never have done anything other than obsess over one species who, compared to the majority of other playable species in the game, have been around insanely briefly.

Yes; I do agree that I wish at times Chaos wasn’t used to usurp Xenos threats just to pull the old ‘but Chaos was the true villain all along’, see what you mention about the Hive Mind and the Great Rift, about Chaos usurping Orks on Armageddon etc. etc.

However, I disagree that Chaos is remotely as irritatingly favoured in the lore as the Imperium. Yes, it is true, that it is not infrequently written in vague terms that ‘you are all doomed, Chaos comes for you,’ but, in the majority of cases, this is purely informed, never shown. It is akin to the lines that tell us ‘Aeldari are so smart and elite,’ but then we just get shown them being curbstomped over and over again. We’re ‘told’ Chaos is some great looming threat which will win...but in practise they do only mildly better than Xenos in the lore, with Chaos losing the vast majority of everything they ever do in the lore, just like Xenos. I will admit Chaos has, lately, done *marginally* better in the lore, and that is definitely connected, as you say, to the active focus to make Chaos the ‘big bad’ now, but it is still only marginal.

I do agree that I would prefer not to see Chaos made to eclipse all other threats but my main motivation here is just because in 40k, as you point out, Chaos is never separated from the Imperium. In WHFB and AoS Chaos can take on a plurality of forms and is not just a ‘spikier’ version of the main human faction. For this reason the recent feeling I have had is just that 40k is increasingly becoming a clone of the Horus Heresy which, as someone who likes Xenos, is obviously a disappointment.

I don’t share your very strong disdain for Chaos. For the most part, in 40k’s lore, I feel Chaos is largely akin to Xenos in that we’re all glorified punching bags for Space Marines (you yourself point out Abaddon’s memetic loser status). I concede Chaos does *marginally* better but, at current, that is so inconsequential to me that it doesn’t bother me anywhere near as much as the treatment of Xenos vis-a-vise the Imperium.

My personal take is I think the favouritism as an antagonist, shown to Chaos, is less detrimental to the cause of Xenos agency in the lore than the raging boner GW and BL have for the Imperium and, in particular Space Marines.

I also, in general, think Chaos would benefit from being developed in a more nuanced way. I don’t see them quite as cardboard-cut out as you seem too (not denying many are because BL and GW can’t write non-Imperium characters well mostly) but I think many of them have, and to an extent do also, get treated more nuanced in some of the literature. I do think a big failing here is that Black Library has made *some* efforts to make *some* of the Chaos characters interesting and nuanced but, for some reason, GW tends to just ignore this. Hence Magnus can in his own novels be portrayed as sympathetic due to his loyalty to his people and desire to not persecute Psykers, but then when appearing in a campaign supplement just makes the stock-generic ‘bow before me mortals/I am your doom/all shall fall’ comments with little to no character.

Personally, and this is recognizing as I said above that I do understand some of the points you’re making, I feel like Chaos players and Xenos players, in terms of the lore treating us like crap, have more in common than not. But, again, that’s just my personal opinion!

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princesssarcastia · 4 years ago

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the republic shatters, but it does not Fall. and its not Ahsoka’s goddamn job to pick up the pieces, actually.

GUESS WHO SPENT ALL OF THIS WEEK HAVING LOTS OF STAR WARS FEELINGS. GUESS WHO JUST WROTE AN 8K+ WORD FIC ABOUT THOSE FEELINGS.

definitely haven’t been subsumed by thoughts of the Fall Of The Republic as a proxy for all my anxiety about the election, no siree.

anyway. In which Ahsoka takes Maul’s hand, convinces Anakin to sit his ass down, and then has to learn how to hand the fate of the galaxy back over to he people who fucked it up in the first place. And in which the author acknowledges Barris Was Right, Even If Her Methods Were Radical and Flawed, And Ultimately Detracted From Her Message.

will probably call this, “had we but world enough and time,” on ao3. edit: here it is on ao3, if you prefer.

—

Maul smirks and the feeling of it lingers in the wider office, grating.

But that doesn’t mean she’s wrong.

Her breath comes and goes in quick bursts, montrals shuddering lightly with exhaustion. The enormity of what they’ve done has started falling on her; the enormity of what she’s done, by the Force. But her hands are the kind of steady earned through a crucible of three years of constant battle.

Too much battle, Master Windu thinks, and Ahsoka narrows her eyes at him when she catches it and presses closer.

“You don’t lay a finger on him; none of you get to do that, not now.”

“Now that I’ve—” Maul starts to drawl, but Ahsoka cuts him off.

“Not helping, Maul,” she spits without taking her eyes off the threatthreathreat she can feel from Master Windu.

Ahsoka showed up out of nowhere with the enemy she was meant to capture as backup—or, she was his backup, they hadn’t quite straightened that out on the way. But it’s also that Anakin has—Anakin was—Anakin is—and Ahsoka was his apprentice for three years.

And whose fault is that? Ahsoka thinks desperately, and Windu catches it, and it’s getting harder and harder for them to keep their shields up, keep their minds from meeting in the Force; Master Fisto lies dead not ten feet from her, and she’s used to dead bodies, she is, but dead Jedi still feel anathema and the violence of it lingers in the Force here even though they’ve been dying in droves in the last stages of this pointless conflict all this pointless death she is a solider not a Jedi what was it all for?

“Come now, Lady Tano,” Maul says, an undercurrent of pleasure at the chaos he can sense from her—not that he’s any better, he likes chaos. It’s what he’s good at. But she’s not, and it dulls her keen edges.

She forces a slow, full breath in, and out, and her hands stay steady.

“This is not the Jedi way,” Master Windu says like it matters.

“No? Maybe not.” Ahsoka draws in another breath. “But I don’t think that means anything, anymore. There have been too many compromises in this war, Master Windu, for you to tell me here and now that Maul deserves to die for winning it.”

“Obi-Wan would agree with me.”

“Obi-wan isn’t here, master,” Ahsoka says like an accusation. “And can you honestly tell me you were going to do anything different? Why were you here in this office?”

“Arresting him, so he could be brought to justice,” Master Windu bites out, and Ahsoka knows she’s won, because it’s a lie.

That’s not what this was about.

This was about millions of dead clones and thousands of dead Jedi and hundreds of years of steady decay disguised as peace.

Another lie.

Master Windu sighs like the weight of the galaxy is pressing it out of him. And maybe it is; destiny fell hard on their shoulders today.

Now, they find out if they can bear it.

“Fine. We’ll do it your way, Lady Tano,” he capitulates, using Maul’s title for her to make a point. “For now.”

—

“How did you get away with being pregnant for so long?” Ahsoka asks hesitantly, as they wait together. “I mean, your gowns make a good effort, but…”

Padmé hums. “They weren’t meant to convince anyone I wasn’t pregnant; it’s,” she taps her armrest, “it’s a cultural thing. Padmé Naberrie is pregnant, but Senator Padmé Amidala isn’t. Our private lives are sacrosanct, on Naboo, and with Palpatine,” her voice breaks, and she clears her throat. “With Palpatine being the Chancellor for so long, Naboo culture was something most of the Senate understood.”

“Ah,” Ahsoka says, and it almost makes sense. “We never had a lot of privacy in the Order. Or in the GAR, but that was different,” she adds, shaking her head.

“How so?” Padmé asks, her eyes brightening the way Master Obi-Wan’s did, those rare moments in between battles when Anakin and Ahsoka could be lured into debating philosophy.

“I mean, we’re all Jedi, we all grow up together, learn together, live together. We’re Jedi,” she repeats, “and we—it’s—we blend together in the Force. There are things we just knew about one another, unless someone made an effort to hide, but then we knew that, too.” She makes a frustrated noise. “It’s not bad, though, it’s comforting. Usually we didn’t feel the need to hide anything from other Jedi, and it was comforting, to know that you could just be in the Temple, without any pretenses.

“Whereas the GAR,” Ahsoka twists her lips wryly, “the lack of privacy stems from the close quarters and the constant battle and movement. There’s no time for privacy when every second wasted means someone else dies. And a lot of the regulations meant there were things we had to report to our superiors. Everything, basically, because some senators who helped draw up regulations thought that our use of the Force meant our every thought and feeling was pertinent to the war effort.”

“I see,” Padmé says, and they sit with these things they’ve said, and all the things they haven’t.

Ahsoka can feel the question in the back of their throats, and she can’t tell if it’s coming from her or from Padmé, but Padmé is the one who gives it life. So kindly that it almost doesn’t feel like the dagger to her gut that it is.

“Is it still like that now?”

“I don’t know,” Ahsoka whispers, finally, because this isn’t something she can say loudly; not yet. “I don’t—not for me. It isn’t like that for me, anymore. But for everyone else?” She asks. “I can’t tell the difference between trauma and classified information and loss of faith in other Jedi, in the others.”

Or in herself.

—

When the find the chips—

Little gods and all the Force, too.

Anakin felt like he could have torn all of Coruscant asunder, and Ahsoka knew she wasn’t far behind him. A lot of the other Jedi weren’t far behind him; Aayla Secura and Plo Koon and Depa Billaba and the others who lived and died by thousands of brothers for three years.

But Rex isn’t surprised. That’s what finally breaks Ahsoka: the lack of surprise on Rex’s face and the grim way Cody asks if these chips really change anything.

She leaves the now-chaotic debriefing room and hurries blindly through the halls of the Senate, grasping at the Force for a safe place to land and fall to pieces.

She stumbles into a large set of offices, meant for a senator, maybe, but Ahsoka can’t quite grasp the lay of it with her montrals vibrating like they are; with her eyes so full of this last shattering betrayal, the final throw of earth in its burial.

“Master Jedi?” Someone calls sharply, but Ahsoka can’t answer them before she backs into a corner and sinks to the floor. Can’t correct them, say, I am no Jedi, because she doesn’t know truth from lie anymore.

“Master Jedi,” that same voice repeats more calmly, right in front of her and vaguely familiar. “Ahsoka, right?”

She desperately trills some affirmative, and it must be within their range of hearing because they say, “Okay,” and nothing else.

Slowly, in fits and starts, the physical creeps into her awareness. This is a senator’s office, and if she’s not mistaken, it’s the office of the man crouching in front of her. She recognizes him, vaguely, and might be able to name him with another minute of study.

“Do you know where you are?” He asks, radiating calm like a Jedi master without any of the awareness in the Force.

“Your offices,” Ahsoka bites out lowly, starting to feel a low burn of embarrassment. “Sorry, I’m—sorry. I’m sorry. I was just—”

“It’s fine, Master Jedi. There’s a lot of that going around,” he jokes lightly, except for how it isn’t a joke at all.

“The debriefing,” she says, the debriefing, because there’s only one, and if Ahsoka can recognize him then he’s definitely important enough to sit in on it. “You weren’t there,” she adds questioningly.

“Ah, yes,” he says mildly. “I’m afraid I’ll need to be briefed on the debriefing later by one of my colleagues; Senator Amidala, perhaps, her notes are usually impeccable. I was unavoidably detained by the Queen.”

“The queen,” Ahsoka repeats back to him, like Hondo’s stupid monkey-lizard.

“Queen Breha Organa,” he responds, and she’s grateful that still, all he radiates is calm, because her embarrassment now is strong enough to rival her desperate horror.

“Your wife,” she says like an idiot to Senator Bail Organa of Alderaan, one of the leaders of the delegation of 2000 and main architects of the Republic’s efforts to rebuild.

“Yes,” he says. “Do you drink tea?”

She takes a deep breath in, forcing her heartrate to slow. “I do,” she replies. You can’t spend any time in proximity with Master Obi-Wan without it.

“I would be honored if you would join me, then,” Senator Organa says, rising and extending a hand to her in one smooth motion that belies his heavy robes. “I think your perspective on these proceedings may be invaluable, if you’re willing to offer it.”

Ahsoka grasps it and pulls to her feet. “It’s the least I can do,” she says. “Seeing as I just had a panic attack in your office.”

“Wonderful,” he smiles at her, not denying it, and leads her away.

—

A galaxy cannot stumble up to the edge of oblivion and then step back gracefully, kindly, simply, easily, just because they notice it’s happened. An end is inevitable.

The Republic fell three years ago, thirteen years ago, seventeen years ago. Now the work is sorting shattered remains to see what is worth preserving, and what can be thrown out wholesale.

Saving isn’t on the agenda.

—

There are so few Jedi left, now, compared to what they were before. Perhaps half the Order has died, in three years of relentless violence, and those who remain feel brittle in the Force. The very young and the very old alone remain whole, and the disconnect is stifling.

Not all of those who remain stay. Entire lineages depart from the Temple, unable to contemplate trying to live as they had before.

Trying, and failing.

Tholme and T’ra Saa depart for parts unknown to the Order at large as soon as the last battle fades into armistice. Years of intelligence work and corralling those brave few Jedi who were willing to let the darkness swallow them whole have left them closer than the Code can abide. And Quinlan Vos follows soon after, to no one’s surprise.

Aayla…she stays. She stays, for now, but it’s a tenuous settling. As long as Bly is with her, she will endure.

But if she has to choose between the Order and Bly, or the Order and seeing her master again, the Order will lose.

—

Calling them Senate hearings would be a misnomer; the Senate doesn’t really…exist, anymore. With Palpatine gone, a crippling power vacuum sits at the heart of the Republic, leaving them, somehow, even more ineffective than they were before. No system trusts any other system well enough to vote someone else into the Chancellorship that, all of a sudden, seems too powerful for any one being.

But their bylaws are still legal.

If not for the Jedi’s efforts to negotiate armistices with the Confederacy, they would be completely unable to negotiate or sue for peace, left mired in a thousand little wars, shards of the larger conflict that shattered with Dooku and Grievous. The Jedi hold the peace of hundreds of worlds in their palms.

No one is particularly happy with this state of affairs. Not even the Jedi, though some of Bail’s colleagues doubt that to the point of insult.

This particular briefing is in one of the lesser chambers, with perhaps only two hundred key systems directly represented. A dozen Jedi and half that many clones have joined them to provide information and counsel on military matters, and all of their agitation is more palpable by the moment.

Master Windu, as Head of the Order, has spoken before the Senate many times; but today, he remains quiet and stone-faced, his hand pressed against his mouth as if to remind himself of his silence.

Master Kenobi, on the other hand, has exhaustedly pulled and pushed at conversational threads the entire time, lambasting falsehoods and correcting ignorance and on one very startling occasion baring his teeth at a senator who suggested—demanded—the Trade Federation be allowed a voice in these proceedings.

That motion died swiftly.

The famed negotiator is seemingly at the end of his rope when it comes to these proceedings, and Bail can’t blame him.

After the very first of these briefings, the one Bail missed, Master Skywalker was not allowed to attend, and the look on Ahsoka’s face when they learned of this made him think it’s for the best.

No Kaminoan representative has appeared after Halle Burtoni was swiftly recalled just before Master Shaak-Ti revealed what had been done to the clone troops, which Bail thinks is also for the best; if only because their safety could not be guaranteed.

—

Mace doesn’t understand it until he meets Padawan Vrosch.

Barely Padawan Vrosch; if not for the war, this little nautolan would still comfortably be an initiate, but needs must.

Padawan Vrosch is a padawan of the Temple. Masterless, and left that way too long because no master could take up their training after…after what always happens to Jedi in wars.

Padawan Vrosch’s master died very early on, after taking a padawan very young on both ends. They went to their master’s funeral, when they were still affording every Jedi lost in battle their own funeral, their own pyre and remembrance.

Most Padawans their age would have been at odd ends; but Vrosch quietly took up their own education, signing up for and attending classes as they came, joining initiates in their saber training, and patiently waiting for the day someone noticed them again.

They also found purpose in these intervening years, a much harder task: attending all the funerals held for fallen Jedi at the Temple.

“I was the only one there for my master,” Padawan Vrosch speaks solemnly up to him. “When he died.”

Mace settles down next to them in the gardens—still too quiet, too empty, too devoid of the sparks of brightness that made it easy to just be in—and waits, patiently, for what the Force is telling him he needs to hear.

Not just the Force. Mace has trained one Padawan to Knighthood already. A youngling alone shouldn’t stay that way.

“I know the war was important,” Vrosch continues. “The Jedi wouldn’t fight in it if it wasn’t.”

Their faith stirs some inkling of wonder and shame from Mace; he finds he isn’t so certain.

“But we’re Jedi,” they say insistently. “We’re all Jedi. We shouldn’t die alone, and we shouldn’t pass into the Force alone, and we shouldn’t be remembered alone.

“I can’t fight very well, Master Windu,” Vrosch whispers, their tentacles twitching listlessly, like this is a failure on their part. “But I could do this. We aren’t mean to be alone, Master Windu.”

Mace sighs and looks out over too-quiet gardens.

“No, we’re not, Padawan.”

—

“Where is he?”

Ahsoka has been avoiding Obi-Wan for this exact reason.

“I don’t know,” she says quietly, looking back at him steadily. Steady, steady, so, so steady; Ahsoka is steady because if she isn’t then it all falls apart. She’s certain and resolute because if she isn’t then she was wrong, and they Fall.

Obi-Wan runs a hand through his hair, pulling too-long strands out of his face. He’s eroded to the quick. They all are. But leaving on what should have been the last mission of the war, only to return to find the Republic and your padawan on the brink of collapse, your oldest enemy free and your former grandpadawan responsible for freeing him…

The one thing he could still be sure of had been Cody, and even that was taken from him. Now, he has only himself.

“He pulled us back from the Fall, master, and left without taking advantage of it. I don’t think we can ask more from him than that.”

Welcome to my world, Kenobi.

None of their shields are functioning anymore. Ahsoka gets Obi-Wan’s full impression of Maul, his sense of Maul’s whole self, and accepts it as another burden on her shoulders. She knew the second she took Maul’s hand that Master Obi-Wan would never forgive her, would never understand, and she did it anyway.

Before he can work through to quiet acceptance of another grievous wound from someone he didn’t expect—a burden that might finally break her—Ahsoka untangles them from each other in the Force and walks away.

Infinite sadness, the Force murmurs to her, but she doesn’t look back.

—

It’s like they hit the Republic and the Order and the Galaxy over and over and over and over and over again until cracks spread into their very foundations—and then each took the finishing blow inside themselves, in place of the things they all bled and died and Fell for.

And they all shattered instead.

—

When Ahsoka tells Rex what she wants, he drags her to Cody—who gives in with surprisingly little resistance, and then lets her watch his comm to Commander Fox and the face that he makes, because Cody outranks everyone, and Fox can’t say no. It almost makes up for stifling-fear-anger-betrayal from her time in Fox’s custody.

Sometimes, Ahsoka forgets that Anakin spent half a year serving with Cody the same way Ahsoka served with Rex.

They try to take her lightsabers at the last checkpoint, but she hands them off to Rex to safely hang from his belt. Not a single one of the men here can be trusted with them in her mind, even though that’s not fair.

The hard part of being self-aware is knowing you’re being irrational with no way to stop.

She waves the escort off, and to her surprise, they leave, though she can feel them linger just around the corner.

One beat, two beats, three beats of silence.

Fine.

Ahsoka settles onto the durasteel floor, lets the cold seep into legs and work its way up her lekku and down her montrals.

In, out, in, out, in…out…i n… . . o u t . .. . …….

Her-not-her-other expands and contracts in time with her lungs, and she becomes grassland; wind whips across the plains and she is the predator at the center, low to the ground, tasting the breeze and aware of every creature, every hidey-hole, every current. Daughter, the wind murmurs, and a convor’s cry echoes across the endless sky.

In the place between them, grassland and frigid desert meet, warm and cold winds mixing to create something more. Something terrible. They are not the same winds; the predator snarls, for it knows death rides on the cold.

Death and betrayal.

Barriss stiffens in her cell, and Ahsoka sighs. As it should be, she thinks, but also, that’s not why I’m here.

But also, Barriss, is that true? and justice is merely the construct of the current power base.

Barriss’ eyes fly open at that. “So, the rumors are true. You did help him,” she says dully.

“He helped me,” Ahsoka fires back. Sighs again. “But maybe it doesn’t matter.”

“Oh?” Barriss raises an eyebrow cooly.

With your help, the Jedi can stop Sidious before it’s too late!

Too late for what? The Republic to fall? It already has, and you just can't see it! There is no justice, no law, no order, except for the one that will replace it!

Energy crackles between them, and Ahsoka bites her lip.

“I think…” she hesitates. “I think he was right, Barriss,” she whispers. “I think you were right, too.”

Barriss’ breath catches in her throat, her eyes snagging Ahsoka’s until they’re caught in a deadlock and warm and cold winds rise, rise, rise together, and a squall erupts in the Force. At the edge of it, the clone troopers shift, discomforted.

“You can feel it, too?” Barriss asks desperately, and Ahsoka catches flashes of Master Luminara sitting where she sits now, beaten and drawn and blind.

In, out. Ahsoka expands the grasslands and points out the guiding winds to friend-not. These aren’t Master Windu’s shatterpoints, but they are everywhere: in the Senate, in the Temple, on the Star Destroyers, in the Jedi and the people and the clones. The Republic has shattered already. It just hasn’t fallen to pieces. The Republic is failing! The Republic is Falling.

Tears slip down Barriss’ face, relief-fear-sadness-righteous. Ahsoka trills, acknowledgement-soothing-fear-anger.

“What are we doing? What are we going to do?” Barriss throws out.

“What have we done?” Ahsoka counters. Blasters-energy-darkness-death-dying-agony-conflict-violence-pain-destruction-death-war-war-war-war.

In, war, out, war.

“It didn’t die with Sidious. I thought—but Maul was right, you were right. It’s all of us. And I don’t know how to fix it, Barriss, and I don’t think anyone else does, either.” She shifts, hugging her knees to her chest. The predator morphs, uncertain, into prey, akul-scented on the wind, nowhere to run; they can only face it.

“That’s because it’s not our job,” Barriss says, face darkening.

“Why not? We are j—” Ahsoka swallows the word. They aren’t. Barriss, expelled. Ahsoka, lost.

Barriss shakes her head sharply. “No, that’s not what I meant. We should never have—we—we’re peacekeepers!” She says indignantly. “And that doesn’t mean pacifist, but it also doesn’t mean warmonger. The jedi lost their honor the second they put us on the battlefield.”

Blasters-energy-darkness-death-dying-agony-conflict-violence-pain-destruction-death-war-war-war-war.

Death Watch surrounds her, too close, and it damns them; her lightsabers whirl out and catch all four of them in the neck at once. And on to the next before their heads roll to a stop. Bloodless, cauterized death-wounds, but the smell of it….

The grasslands are set ablaze, and the predator learns to run with the flames, instead of from them.

Barriss’ hands are never fully clean. Mud and viscera stain her skirts as she lashes out at the Umbarans to protect her men, and then drops to hold the men she couldn’t protect together in the Force, desperately failing to hold them all together, Master Luminara isn’t here no one is here it’s just Barriss and Death nipping at her heels.

Desert sands whirl and whip like glass shards, higher and higher and colder and colder until all that lasts is the storm.

And….and….

Anakin, only seven years older than Ahsoka is; Master Obi-Wan hadn’t even been knighted yet at his age. Ahsoka thinks about being thirteen and missing Temple classes for battles. Thinks about being fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, and feeling death emanate from her lightsabers in the unifying force, stronger than any other feeling.

Thinks about being knighted at seventeen. Thinks about Barriss alone on the battlefield. Thinks about Katooni, and wonders if she’s a Padawan yet.

Thinks about half of the Jedi Order, gone.

When the guards come back for her, Ahsoka stands and works the kinks out of her muscles ruthlessly fast, too used to her surroundings shifting on a credit to let that kind of weakness linger. Barriss stares after her with water and hope in her eyes, because they both know Ahsoka is coming back. More questions lie between them than answers, now.

—

The debriefings turn into hearings, public ones. Ahsoka’s shoulders tense every time she sets foot in the Senate, feeling the searching-grasping-angry-false atmosphere. As inaction continues to dominate their government, some senators have started making noise about someone to blame for all of this. Like Sidious isn’t to blame; like they all aren’t to blame.

Whenever the noise overwhelms her, the directionless anger prowling for an easy target, she finds her feet taking her back to Senator Organa’s offices, again and again. It’s the will of the Force that he’s always there when she does, always with tea already waiting for them. The unifying Force swirls lazily in the space around them in a way Ahsoka can’t interpret; like the future has its eyes on this moment in its past.

They talk about the proceedings. About the war. About the peace talks some Jedi are still presiding over without any authority to back them. Ahsoka discovers that she has opinions about these that are uniquely her own, ones Senator Organa finds fascinating in a purely kind way.

Senator Organa opens up about the troubles Alderaan’s relief missions face, without proper authority and with the Republic forces’ attention off some of the usual hyperspace lanes.

Frustration is a bonding emotion between them. But the time they spend together is the only peace Ahsoka’s life affords her.

—

When Ahsoka left the Jedi Order, she felt the weight of all the work she wasn’t doing press hard on her shoulders, guilt twining between her legs and tripping her up every time happiness or contentment seemed in reach. It made it so easy to take Bo Katan’s hand when she reached out; so easy to take on Mandalore’s battles as her own, because it felt like war and inaction were her only options.

Ahsoka was decisive. Her actions determined the course of so many lives. So many troopers under her command, so many citizens depending on their victory; and for those brief, too-long hours with Maul, the whole Republic balanced on their backs.

Now, inaction has descended again. The weight of roads not taken and guilt encircle her throat like a collar. With Master Obi-Wan and Commander Cody and Captain Rex in the Senate every day, with Padmé and Senator Organa, the future of the Republic doges her every step, but she’s nearly powerless to help.

And it doesn’t help that her future with the Order is still up in the air.

Master Windu seems to have set her brief partnership with Maul aside until they know whether the Republic will fix itself, but having the threat of his disapproval hang over her head is worse than any swift punishment he could have devised. Like, for instance, barring her from rejoining the Order.

The Temple is her home. The Jedi are her people. Ahsoka knows she doesn’t want to live without them anymore.

But the Order has ground to a halt, and Ahsoka doesn’t know how to be still, anymore; her waiting is purely predatory, a simple watching for the next moment to strike.

Meditating has never been her strong suit, but she takes it up again anyway. It’s supposed to afford her clarity, if not peace.

In, out. In, out.

In, out. In, out. In, out. In, out. In, out. In, out. In, out.

Ahsoka lets out a frustrated huff. It’s so easy when she slips into the grasslands and the desert with Barriss; the both of them searching for answers no one seems to have, answers to questions too many people aren’t asking.

But on her own? For herself?

Not a damn moment of clarity.

She lets out another frustrated huff and pushes to her feet. Fine. Moving meditation, it is. In, out. Rise. In, out.

In, out. Left foot back, right foot forward, arm across the body. Ahsoka automatically pulls her empty grip in front of her face, instead of at her side, and lets her other hand act as both counterbalance and guard behind her.

In, out. In, out.

Forward, back.

Parry, attack, defend.

Deflect. In, out.

In, out. In, out, In….. out…. …. ……….

She alternates slow and fast repetitions and allows the living Force to flow through her, abandoning all thought toward the future.

In out forward back parry attack defend deflect in out; In, out, forward, back, parry, attack, defend, deflect, in……out……..

“Always in motion, the future is,” Master Yoda says from where he’s settled into the grass across from her. “Always in motion, you are, Ahsoka.”

In, out. The grasslands recede, leaving only Ahsoka. She dashes the sweat from her brow with the back of her hand and falls into slow, easy stretches, letting the moment extend between her and her oldest teacher.

When they’re both ready, she releases a last breath and lowers herself in front of him.

“Happy here, you are not.” His ears dip low. “Happy here, many are not. Leaving, many are, to find themselves outside the Jedi Order.”

Ahsoka says nothing, content to wait for him to ask, not sure she has an answer to offer.

He sighs. “Leaving, are you, Ahsoka Tano?”

“I don’t know, master. I don’t know…what I’m supposed to do now.”

Yoda offers no answers, either.

“Jedi, you are,” he says, but it feels like a question. He feels…uncertain, and it strikes Ahsoka like a blow. Yoda isn’t supposed to be uncertain; he’s supposed to be…Yoda!

We’re peacekeepers! Barriss’ voice says in her mind, and he and Ahsoka flinch as one.

But…

“Yes,” she mulls, “I am a Jedi.” In, out. “But I don’t know what that means anymore. What we stand for. What we’re supposed to do,” she repeats her earlier refrain.

Yoda hums. “Neither do I,” he says, full of mischief and sorrow for not having the answers younglings always expect from him.

“Jedi, you are; in the Temple, Jedi, you are. On Mandalore, Jedi, you are. And on Felucia, Alderaan, Naboo, Tatooine.

“Jedi, you are, always.”

It rings out in the Force. Daughter, it murmurs to her, and the cantor soars over the grasslands, free once again.

Her breath shudders out of her, leaving tears in its wake. She shudders, and cries, until it turns into great rolling sobs that wrack her whole body and seep into the Force around them, sinking into the grass and plants and trees.

Relief. It flows openly between her and Master Yoda. Relief-identity-purpose-forgiveness-Jedi.

“Searching, you are, for answers none have yet. Find them for ourselves, we must. Yes,” he hums again. “Find them for ourselves, we will, and then, know them together, we will.”

She wipes uselessly at her face, still crying. “But what about the Senate, the armistices, the clones—”

Yoda shakes his head. “Your job, this is not. Jedi, you are. Jedi Knight, I name you, Ahsoka Tano; now; always. But young, you still are. Heavy burdens, we have placed on the shoulders of all our younglings.”

“But you just said I was a Knight,” she protests, and he smiles at her.

“Younglings,” he grumbles playfully. “Younglings you all are, to me. Even Master Windu.”

A beat.

“Youngling you were, when sent into battle, you were. When send you into battle, the Council did.” He sighs heavily. “Great things, you have achieved, on the field of battle. Under Master Skywalker’s tutelage,” he emphasizes Anakin’s new title. “An exaggeration, it is not, to say that saved the Republic, you have, Ahsoka Tano; even if with the unlikeliest of allies, you did. But had to, you should not have.”

Half the Order, gone.

Fresh tears flood her eyes, and the beginnings of a dehydration headache start to throb.

“Many things, we will have to consider. What we have done, for the sake of this war. What we will do, for the sake of our future. Easier it is, for myself and other masters, to contemplate these things here, in the Temple. Easier it is not, for you.”

In, out. She breathes easier now than she has since the Temple was bombed months and months past. Now that Master Yoda…he…. Force, his approval still means so much to her.

“Need my approval, you did not,” Master Yoda chides gently.

“I wanted it, though,” Ahsoka realizes. In, out. With his approval, so much of her uncertainty is gone, the things that temper her will to act dissipating with the knowledge that she isn’t alone anymore.

Jedi aren’t meant to be alone.

A breeze winds through the physical world around them, and Ahsoka tilts her head up to feel it better.

“Here we will be, when ready you are to return.”

—

Unsurprisingly, she finds Skyguy at Padmé’s apartment. The two of them kind of abandoned any pretense when the war ended and he got to stay on Coruscant for more than a week. When his troops—and the Republic, nominally—didn’t need him on the field of battle anymore.

“I have something to tell you,” they say at the same time, awkwardly sitting across from each other at Padmé’s kitchen table; Padmé herself having retreated to her—her and Skyguy’s? —bedroom with her handmaidens to keep packing. Ahsoka doesn’t know everything about human reproductive cycles, but it doesn’t seem like Padmé can get much bigger without literally bursting, so she must be preparing for the end of it. She’ll be on Naboo for a few months.

Or at least, that’s what she says. Ahsoka suspects she may be back on Coruscant sooner, given the state of the galactic government.

They both gesture for the other to go first; they both pause awkwardly, waiting each other out, and Ahsoka rolls her eyes at them internally. Little gods, really? This is what they’re reduced to

And then they speak at the same time again:

“I’m rejoining the Order.”

“I’m leaving the Order.”

“What?” They yell, together, and Ahsoka growls at the both of them.

“You’re leaving the Order?” Ahsoka demands, finally speaking on her own.

“I,” Anakin blinks, and rubs the back of his neck like she’s blindsided him. “Yeah. I don’t think I can stay, Snips, not with the way things are.”

She raises her brow. “And how is that?”

He rolls his eyes at her, externally. “I’ve never exactly been a model Jedi, Ahsoka.”

“Banthashit. Everyone says you’re one of the best Jedi in the Order.”

“No,” he counters, “they say I’m one of the best Generals in the order. One of the best warriors. And now,” he turns to look in the direction Padmé went and his whole being softens in the Force, “I want to try and be one of the best husbands. One of the best fathers,” he grins, and it strikes Ahsoka that he’s so young. He’s so young, to have done the things he’s done. So young to be a father.

Holy kriff, Anakin Skywalker is gonna be a dad.

Visions of him jumping off of cliffs and being electrocuted run through her mind.

He catches the memories and grumbles at her. Sighs.

“I don’t think I want to try and be a better Jedi, is the thing. There is no try,” he says bitterly. “Only do or do not.”

“And you…do not,” Ahsoka says hesitantly.

“I love my wife,” he says. “I love my children. I love you, and Obi-Wan, and Rex and our men. But I don’t love the Jedi Order anymore, if I ever did.”

Ahsoka thinks she loves the Order as much as it’s possible to love something so integral to who she is and who she wants to be.

Were you not cast out of your Order?

I left voluntarily.

Yes, but you were motivated to leave by the hypocrisy of the Jedi Council.

Many things, we have to consider.

“So, what are you going to do now? If you’re not a Jedi.” Ahsoka asks.

Anakin leans back in his seat, crosses his arms.

What do you want with Anakin Skywalker?

He is the key to everything. To destroy. He has long been groomed as my master’s new apprentice.

The Force roils as he sees what she has seen, hears what Maul said to her; it’s always so responsive for him. Anger. Hate. Disbelief.

Yeah. Ahsoka didn’t believe it either, until Maul told her who Sidious really was. Until they got to Coruscant and Ahsoka could feel Anakin, his rage and fear and uncertainty. They barely got there in time, and the galaxy hung in the balance between Anakin and Ahsoka. He pulls the memory of that from her too, and visibly brings himself back under control.

“I’m going to Naboo with Padmé. And maybe,” he hesitates. “I think I’ll help Rex and the other troops out, too. With whatever their plans are. Some other Jedi are helping, too. Aayla, for one,” he adds when he sees her twitch in curiosity. “Padmé’s been helping them fight the Senate for citizenship rights, and they’re just starting a search for places to settle down.

“It’ll calm a lot of anxieties in the Senate when they find it,” Ahsoka says, mulling it over. “Having a standing army makes everyone nervous.”

Anakin snorts. “Sure. But it’s less that and more that they deserve it. They always deserved it,” he says lowly, the seeds of a greater anger taking root. “And if we tried to frame it like that, then some senators would say the troopers shouldn’t be able to leave until the Separatists decommission their droids.”

Something doesn’t quite make sense about that. Ahsoka thinks about what she’s caught of the recent debriefings, and can’t remember any of the senators talking about this as anything more than a distant possibility.

“Hang on,” she says, the pieces coming together. “What exactly are you planning, Skyguy?”

He grins, sharply this time. “Yeah, don’t go spreading it around. We, uh, requisitioned some medical droids and started removing their chips weeks ago. There’s nothing stopping them for doing whatever they want, now.”

“Holy kriff,” Ahsoka breathes, eyes wide. “How is this even going to—they’re still members of the GAR, can’t they get court martialed?”

“Not if all of them leave,” he smirks. “There’s no law or force in the galaxy that could tell them all what to do, anymore.”

She thinks about Anakin and Rex, Master Obi-Wan and Commander Cody, Master Windu and Commander Ponds. “Not even the Jedi.”

“Which you’re going back to.”

“I am a Jedi,” she says, and the Force winds around her like a satisfied lothcat. Anakin senses it and purses his lips. “A Jedi Knight,” she adds, and his shoulders sag in defeat.

“It suits you,” he admits, and leans back toward her over the table.

“Just because I’m a Jedi doesn’t mean I’m staying here, though. I’m not just gonna sit around, anymore, even if the Order isn’t assigning missions.”

He hesitantly reaches for her hand. “So, you’ll come to Naboo to meet the twins, when they’re born? It won’t be long now,” he says, not meeting her eyes.

She reaches back, leaning closer to snag his prosthetic hand, too. “I wouldn’t miss it, Skyguy.”

A beat.

“Hang on, twins? Two of them?”

He bursts out laughing, and the whole apartment brightens with his delight. “That’s exactly what Obi-Wan said!”

—

Ahsoka walks into Senator Organa’s offices on purpose, for once, and he looks up at her in surprise.

“I see I’ve finally caught you off guard,” she grins. “I was starting to think you had foresight, the way you’re always ready for me.”

“Well,” he smiles warmly and gestures for her to sit, “perhaps you’ve finally done something unpredictable, Master Jedi.”

He’s called her that this whole time, oddly enough, from the first moment she burst into his space in a panic. Always certain of who she was. It’s pretty telling in retrospect that she never corrected him.

“What brings you to me today?” He asks.

“You’re still having trouble with your relief missions,” Ahsoka states. “I want to help.”

Senator Organa’s brow furrows. “I was unaware the Jedi Order has started assigning missions again. Or the Senate, for that matter.”

“They haven’t,” Ahsoka grins. “But as a fully-fledged Jedi Knight, I’m allowed to offer my services as I see fit, even outside officially sanctioned missions.”

“That’s a very generous offer.”

“I want to help.” She repeats plainly, but it means something different this time. “And I know you want to help, too. I trust your judgment; and,” she shrugs, “Alderaan’s judgment, too.”

“And what kind of help is that, exactly?”

“Whatever kind of help is needed. Diplomacy, piloting, negotiating.” She grins again. “Aggressive negotiations.”

Senator Organa studies her, his hand coming up to his chin in a contemplative gesture. “I trust your judgement as well, Master Jedi.”

Ahsoka sighs in relief. “Well, that’s good.” Her backup plans if this didn’t work were pretty, uh, nebulous.

“You’ve been very occupied by the Senate hearings and the armistices; I suppose,” he says slowly, meeting her eyes directly, “I’m surprised at this decision. I thought you would remain on Coruscant until matters were settled.”

She tilts her head to the side and considers it. “Maybe, in another life. But I think I’m ready to let other people decide the fate of the galaxy again,” she says like it’s a joke, but feels relieved when Senator Organa doesn’t take it like one. “I think,” she continues tentatively, “I can finally trust that everything will still be here when I return. And in the meantime, there are people who need my help, and I need to help them.”

“You’re in luck,” Senator Organa says, pulling one datapad of many off his desk and thumbing it open. “Queen Breha just finalized the details of a joint relief mission with Chandrilla to Ryloth. They only accept aid now when it isn’t the military delivering it, but the hyperspace lanes between there and Alderaan are still tumultuous. And to be honest,” he admits, “we could use some help smoothing the transfers over with local officials, too.”

Ahsoka breathes out, and feels this mission sink onto her shoulders, displacing the greater weights that took up that space before. Greater, but not more important.

“I’ll put you in contact with the mission lead, they can give you details about departure times and what exactly they’ll want you to do.”

“Thank you, Senator Organa,” Ahsoka says as she pushes to her feet.

“I think you can call me Bail,” he says, extending a hand.

“Then I think you should call me Ahsoka,” she replies, taking it.

—

Anakin drags Rex and Kix and Jesse and Cody to Naboo with him, when it’s time, and Padmé thanks them quietly for bringing him back to her, more whole than he’s been since they rode into an arena chained together.

Time away from the politics of rebuilding a government and the Jedi Order—and the relationship between the two and the larger galaxy—has been so good for him that she can’t begrudge personal opportunities lost.

At least now, she knows he’s safe in more ways than one, working for something he really believes in.

—

Ahsoka meets Luke and Leia ten days local standard after they’re born at Varykino on Naboo, and loves them instantly.

A Feeling strikes her as she stares down at the pair of them, utterly enchanting and more powerful than anything she’s ever seen before. “Oh, they’re going to be trouble.”

“You think?” Anakin grins at her.

—

Barriss can feel it, somehow, when Ahsoka finally leaves Coruscant again. Like their increasingly frequent joint meditations have bound them together.

Her strength in the unifying Force has only ever brought her pain; foresight in the middle of a war is nothing but death and darkness. But as Ahsoka leaves, more settled than she’s been since Barriss utterly destroyed the trust between them, and between them and the Order and the Republic, the Force seeps into her vision once again.

Desert winds swirl, sweeping aside too-familiar sands to reveal what potential lies underneath.

Growth. New beginnings. Life.

Barriss sees:

Her hands sweeping over the head of an anxious youngling, murmuring sweet nothings as she applies bacta patches to the saber burns the little Twi’leck who slipped during their first training class, completely accidental.

“It’s going to be alright,” Barriss says with a smile, and she believes it. And the youngling believes her.

Barriss s e e s:

It is not so easy for the scars of war to fade.

We are not soldiers; but we used to be; but we shouldn’t have been.

When the Jedi Order shouldered the burden of galactic war for the Senate, their lauded foresight didn’t reveal the perils of the aftermath. What the real cost of war is for the soldiers who fight it: the ones who die for it, and the ones who have to live with it. Live with what they did in the name of something that was truly corrupted.

Too late for what? The Republic to fall? It already has, and you just can't see it! There is no justice, no law, no order, except for the one that will replace it!

The temple of the New Republic is not a sanctuary suffused with the warmth of a thousand years of brotherhood that they once lived in. It reflects its inhabitants in more ways than one.

It is an alert place, the tension of a thousand survivors of Civil War trained to be on their guard, always. At once a more insular place, disillusioned with the government they’re re-learning how to serve, even now, years after the fact, and a more connected place, with the Jedi more aware of the people themselves by necessity. There are some who will always be more comfortable in a battle than out of it, no matter how long it’s been, because they came of age in battle after battle after battle. But there are others who are finally growing up without a war nipping at their heels, corrupting them.

Jedi come and go more frequently than they used to. There are more Rangers and Watchman than there have been in hundreds of years.

But they are. And they will be.

Barriss sees:

Ahsoka climbs the steps to the Temple, her home, completely at ease, the echoes of her descending them in anguish and uncertainty long faded. Returning from a long, satisfying journey.

Barriss is waiting for her just inside the Temple walls and falls in step next to her. They make their way through the Temple together.

Younglings and Padawans and younger knights and older masters alike whisper in Ahsoka’s wake, as they always do; things they once whispered about her Master, and his Master before him: one of the greatest Jedi of the era. Sith-slayer. Negotiator. Warrior. Her adventures are easy stories to tell in creches, ones where the Jedi triumphs over many different types of evil.

The reality of them is more complicated, of course, but that is something saved for people who can bear it and learn from in; not fear it.

“She’s waiting for you,” Barriss says calmly.

Ahsoka groans. “Barriss, I haven’t even been home five minutes, can’t this wait?”

“You’re ready. She’s more than ready; she’s been waiting for you.”

“Am I? Ready, I mean,” Ahsoka says uncertainly.

They pause in the hallway, passersby parting around them without protest because it’s clear to everyone that the pair of them must stop here.

“Are you?”

She heaves a long, heavy sigh that slides into another groan. “To train a padawan?” Ahsoka hesitates. “Or to stay in the Temple again?”

Barriss says nothing, projecting the serenity she feels every day in the Temple; the serenity she feels when she’s with Ahsoka; the serenity that emanates from their current topic through the unifying Force.

“Because I won’t train a Padawan the way we were trained,” Ahsoka says harshly. “Always on the move. No solid ground to fall back on, no peace. That’s not who we are.”

“Not anymore,” Barriss replies, with that same hint of bitterness. In, out. She releases it as quickly as it appeared.

“I want her to know peace, Barriss. And love,” she adds petulantly, still stinging from her last debate with some of their elders over the Skywalker Clan, the one Barriss suspects played no small part in sending her back out of the Temple again. “Safety.”

“Well, you have your answer, then.”

Ahsoka looks at her blankly.

“Who better to provide those things than you? It’s not like you’d trust anyone else with her, at this point. Still ready to take the fate of the whole galaxy onto your shoulders, Knight Tano,” Barriss teases, gently, because that weight still aches for her friend even now.

“And you’re still ready to take its wounds onto yours, Healer Offee,” Ahsoka returns.

“It’s not like you’ll be alone,” Barriss says with exasperation, starting through the Temple again. Ahsoka keeps to her side automatically, her ‘sabers swinging at her hips. “You’ll have me, and Master Kenobi, and Knight Katooni, and even—Skywalker,” she settles on delicately. “Even if he should never be allowed near our younglings.”

“Maybe we can share her,” Ahsoka muses lightly, still protesting Barriss’ decision not to take an apprentice. Barriss lets it go for now, because she just won the argument.

They slow to a halt outside the Bear Clan’s quarters, and Ahsoka curses. “C’mon, I haven’t even showered yet!”

“You’re no good to anyone putting things off. Always on the move, that Ahsoka Tano. Always looking forward.”

Ahsoka sighs again, with a touch of finality, and relents. She turns to Barriss and tilts her forehead to bump into her friend’s. “Thank you.”

“Anytime,” Barriss says, and presses into Ahsoka’s touch for a moment, before giving her friend one final push.

“Hey!” Ahsoka exclaims as she stumbles through the Clan’s doorway, but Barriss is already halfway down the hallway, her lingering amusement in the Force the only sign she was ever there.

—

Barriss sits in her cell and weeps unabashedly, full of relief for this gift the Force has given her: a future.

For her people.

For herself.

—

fin.

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eelsfeelgross · 4 years ago

Text

Conclusions: Trans Activism v. Radical Feminism, a first-hand account

This is current stance after a lot of direct investigation on both radfems online and trans activists online. No group is judged based on the observations, rhetoric, or propaganda of any outside group, but from my own first-hand observations in combination with objective knowable facts such as actions known to be committed in public record by the likes of criminals or celebrities. However, the bulk of this is based on what I have seen, what I know to be true because it’s been done before my own eyes. While my conclusion may lack information on the more nitpicked aspects of things, I believe their overall impressions still hold true with the amount of experience I’ve had. Keep in mind: this is not my only account. I have dipped into the radfem community before, each time from a different perspective, at a different time, and with open eyes ready to receive whatever I was given. The same is true of the trans community.

Trans Activism

I want to make clear that these conclusions were mainly drawn from my direct experience with the trans community from within. I am not relying on critics of the trans ideology to tell me any of this, though they often echo the same concerns and observations.

The trans community has a serious problem with misogyny, homophobia, and sex denial. They employ magical thinking and emotional pleas to justify their conclusions and commit to arguments of definition that are ultimately lacking substance. However, while lacking rational, they are abundant with emotional reasoning and can be incredibly powerful rhetorical tools in convincing others to believe them without the necessary evidence of anything claimed.

This is especially prevalent when discussing sexual biology and sexual orientation. They consider self-harm to be the fault of other people, even in adults, and use this as a manipulation tactic to make it seem as if they’re being killed at higher rates than their general demographics. This plays hand in hand with the appropriation of statistics around things like racial violence or violence against sex workers to make it appear trans people, particularly white heterosexual (attracted to the opposite sex) trans women from the middle class of Amerca who aren’t victims of prostitution, are under much more persecution than their lived experiences actually reflects.

This has grown into a political ideology not dissimilar to a religion, but without the usual trappings we associate with a religious group. It requires blind faith in the concept of gender and the “life saving” virtues of expensive hormone treatments and plastic surgeries without proper regard for the risks and consequences of these procedures. Challenging the dogma or asking critical questions is considered a sin itself, even when done with excessive caution for other’s feelings. Violence towards known dissenting groups is considered not just ok, but admirable. Expressions of this desire for violence against the out-group is seen as virtuous to the point that doing it too much will be taken as virtue signalling rather than a sign of deep-seeded anger issues as it would for any other situation. Self-identity is their belief system, and public shame are their tools of punishment to control those within the belief system. Due to sex denial, females suffer especially in this paradigm no matter how they identify or what presentations they choose.

However,

Radical Feminism

Once again, I want to make clear that these conclusions were mainly drawn from my direct experience with the radfem community from within. I am not relying on critics of the radical feminist ideology to tell me any of this, though they may echo similar observations.

Radical feminism, as it exists today in action and not in theories from the 1990s, has a huge problem with transphobia, homophobia, and racism. The focus has shifted almost entirely from protecting women to attacking trans women, understandable on some level but counter-productive to all but the individual ego. There is a preoccupation with what women are “allowed” to do, rather than whether their actions and the consequences of those actions actually benefit the cause of anti-sexism. People feel entitled to be nasty, hurtful and even downright transphobic and homophobic if it means hurting their “enemies” somehow. I’m not sure if they fail to see the big picture or have just given up on caring, but it makes all their pleas for compassion and an end to the trans community’s homophobia seem pretty disingenuous.

This focus on “women deserve more as reparations”, when self-applied to the individual, does nothing to combat sexism as these self serving actions often do little to stop sexism and everything to benefit the individual currently existing within a sexist system. It totally ignores the vital role women play in perpetrating sexism through the generations, from mother to daughter or sister or sister or peer to peer through an intricate web of social pressures.Its not totally ignored mind you, but it is conveniently unaddressed whenever addressing it would prevent them from acting aggressive and toxic toward someone else. However others in the community who aren’t personally benefitting from this at the time will notice, thus leading to endless pointless arguments as the egos clash.

This hypocrisy undermines all attempts at broadening their reach to a new generation of women. Similarly, this toxic attitude undermines all opportunity for organization and real activism which requires a certain level of tolerance and the ability to give basic respect to those you don’t like or agree with. All those who do not tolerate such behavior will simply assume radical feminism must be a hate movement because all they see is vitriol and toxicity, no matter how justified the perpetrator feels about it or the underlying motivators. They will not take the time to read theory because they’ve already seen the practice and they have the sense to know it’s bad. Then when these newcomers see this bad behavior for what it is, they’re belittled or deprived of their agency for their decision to turn away from your movement, called things like “handmaidens” and accused of being either selfishly misogynistic or plainly brainwashed, driving them ever further away. The refusal to take responsibility for your own image and the consequences of your behavior under some false impression of ideological purity justifying it only further cements this takeaway outsiders have.

The most egregious example that comes to mind is the “queers” issue. Radfems are adamant about queer being slur, and they’re right. I myself grew up having queer flung at me by violent straight men and I’m not even that old. I feel no joy in the sanitation and generalization of the term. That is not reclamation, that is erasure and appropriation of pain. Most radfems agree on this wholeheartedly. That is, until you decide to spell it “kweer” and start flinging it at trans people who fit a particular homophobic stereotype: strange appearances, unorthodox body modifications like piercing and colored hair, unwashed, perverted to the point of being predatory, self important children who are just playing pretend to be different. All these qualities call back to the stereotype of queers, gays, and it is deeply intrenched in homophobia going back generations. And yet, while radfems would condemn the trans community for the appropriation of queer and its homophobic implications, they have no problem employing it as a slur when it suits their own toxic impulses.

Some even seem to believe that misspelling the word or being homosexual themselves absolves this. It does not. Anybody without the blinders of radfem internal rhetoric will quickly see past this nonsense. If the trans community came back and started calling radfems “diques” and associating the term with severely lesbophobic stereotypes like being unwashed or too ugly to get a man or any of the other countless stereotypes around the slur “dyke”, radfems would be rightly livid. Making a point to only target straight radfems with this insult would not make it any different. But addressing these kinds of hypocritical positions has become a taboo within the radfem community, yet another spark to relight the fires of senseless infighting.

This is the worst example I’ve personally seen, but it is not the only one. There’s also the tendency for radfems, desperate for others who are gender critical to connect with, to make alliances with right wing conservatives despite their racism and homophobia simply because they’re also transphobic but for completely different reasons. And also a tendency to be much more forgiving of misogyny coming from these new “allies” that will glady destroy you too once trans people are out of the way. But I will not labor my point any further by bringing up everything all at once. Regardless, for those who harp on and on about getting to the root of the problem, the moment anyone suggests you try getting to the root of your own problems, taking accountability and making changes, all that self-righteous posturing seems to go out the window just like it does in the trans community. You’ve become a reflection of what you hate in an attempt to combat it, and it will be the death of your movement if you don’t make a serious effort to reform these behaviors and distance yourself from those who employ these forms of rhetoric.

It’s a harsh fact, but the world at large does not care what you deserve, just like sexual biology doesn’t care about your personal feelings about your sex. It just doesn’t. That’s why patriarchy exists in the first place. It is your job as a social movement to use your words and actions to convince them to care. That is what the trans community has managed to do successfully, in my opinion often for the wrong reasons but successfully nonetheless, but such things do not stroke the ego of the individual radfem and therefore simply doesn’t happen in an organized, ideology-wide manner. Small islands of rational stand isolated in a sea of this pointless vitriol, and alone they are hopeless against the attacks against radical feminism born from the trans community and their sex denial that leads to egregious misogyny.

Conclusion

When it comes to the underlying theory, the ideological core, I find that radical feminism has the best chance of growing to become a social movement for genuinely good change in the world, particularly for women and women-loving-women specifically. Trans ideology, in my opinion, is inherently flawed as its core tenants require faith in what one cannot prove and a rejection of science that doesn’t support said faith.

Trans ideology as it exists in 2020 is more akin to religion than science, and has proven its capability to do harm through its use of magical thinking and distorted points of view that constantly shift and change to make space for the core trans ideology to be “correct”. Core ideas such as: sex is either fake or less relevant than gender, that gender is an objective fact of the human psyche, that others failing to fix your own poor mental health are responsible for your harm or death, that transition is always a good idea if someone wants it and no gatekeeping should be performed regarding using plastic surgery to treat mental discomforts, and so on. Remove all these ideas, and the whole thing falls apart.

Meanwhile, removing the toxicity of the radfem community as it exists now will not destroy its underlying core beliefs. Its just that the current people who advertise themselves as radfems and take up that mantle do not actually follow the core ideology of their own movement when it doesn’t benefit them. It has been infiltrated and run amok with bad faith actors who abuse the movement for personal gain, whether they are aware of it or not. And with their combination of being excessively vocal and lacking any shame for their misdeeds, more and more are drawn into their toxic games to the point that the ones who actually speak to the spirit of the core theory get drowned out or attacked to the point none will associate with them openly. The ones who actually know the theory and practice it end up effectively shunned from a community that widely hasn’t even read the theory and thinks hating trans people and thinking pussy = superior makes them a radfem. And thus, by allowing this, that is what radical feminism has become in practice. No amount of appealing to that core philosophy will matter if the actual people don’t apply that theory properly.

So my conclusion? Radical feminism has the greatest potential for good, but it is grossly unrealized and will remain that way without radical internal changes. However, if anyone is equipped to get to the root of the problem and make a radical change it should be radfems. Or at least, the good faith radfems who aren’t abusing the movement, of which I’m convinced have become the minority of radfems in the present day. Perhaps it is time for feminism to once again branch off, not to try returning to the 2nd wave but to set the stage for a true 4th wave as many have talked about. A 4th wave that is based on the foundations set by 2nd wave feminist thinkers, but forward thinking, self-critiquing, and not limited by the hangups of the last wave. I guess only time will tell what radfems value more: their egos in attachment to the idea of identifying as a radfem, or the effective dis-empowerment of patriarchy through organized effort at the expense of satisfying your personal vendettas against all men.

#radfem #radical feminism #trans activism #terf safe #terfs do touch #guilt tripping or baseless accusations = ignored #who am i kidding nobody is going to read this #nuance is dead and im wasting my time #RIP feminism i guess

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eldunea · 5 years ago

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god ok i haven’t even started anakin’s blog yet but i already have his entire pokéverse thought out here i go

ORIGINS.

anakin was born in my fakémon region of preuzien to an enslaved old prussian (prūsai) family. in real life the old prussians were exterminated but in the pokémon world they were made the slaves of the junker ruling class. when the allies came into germany after wwii they tried to put a stop to this but unfortunately were not entirely successful.

as in canon, he has no biological human father, he’s like……the universe’s kid or something, it’s where he gets his insane powers from. in this verse he is also definitely a chosen one, but don’t take that to mean he isn’t a douche because he still totally is

like in canon he was a racer, but he didn’t race pods he raced dragons. his master knew he could make big bucks off him from an early age due to his abilities so according to prussian custom he was put on a dragon before he could learn to walk and learned how to ride that way.

he speaks three languages: german, prūsiskai (the old prussian language) and english. his inability to speak japanese has been a weakness of his that he wants to improve on, and so he is studying that as well.

his first pokémon was a racing noivern that he named majjis, which is old prussian for “corn.” she loves her name and he didn’t even change it after he went vader, it was real fucking obvious which one of “team sith” would go back to the light side when all the other admins named their pokémon stuff like “void devourer” and “bone crusher” and here was darth vader with his ace named fucking. corn. he is currently 36 and starting from like age 10 he never lost a single race while riding corn until he was finally defeated by his son luke.

also like in canon, he won his freedom in a race but was unable to free his mother. much like lotor at the age of 12, anakin had the sense to get the fuck out of preuzien, but unlike lotor, nothing pressing dragged him back. he went to make a name for himself as a trainer and racer around the world, and also became the world’s strongest psychic.

he did go back to prussia briefly to rescue his mom. by that point shmi had been brutally beaten for refusing to give sexual favors to her master, and died in anakin’s arms. enraged, he slaughtered the entire family that had enslaved him.

DESCENT AND REDEMPTION.

as in canon, he was tormented by prophetic dreams of his lover padmé amidala dying and was corrupted by sheev palpatine to join the sith order (colloquially referred to as “team sith”), a criminal organization in orre that stole some of team snagem’s shadow-turning techniques and aimed to do it on a grander scale. palpatine’s goal was to build something known as the shadow star, a weapon so powerful that when aimed at a planet, it could turn all beings shadow, even arceus. the sith order would then use shadow control techniques to rule the world. but one thing that palpatine was also obsessed with was the search for immortality, which is how he baited anakin into joining him--by promising he could save the one he loved.

when anakin became darth vader, he allowed palpatine to turn him into a SHADOW HUMAN, just like all the other team sith admins. this means that much like a shadow pokémon, the door to his heart was sealed and much of his original personality was subsumed into just. this roiling inner turmoil of anger and violence. formally, nobody knew that star trainer and dragon racer anakin skywalker was actually underground crime lord darth vader, but they could all tell that something was really, really wrong because he started becoming colder and more withdrawn to his fans that he had formerly loved.

nobody guessed that he had become a shadow, however, because they all attributed his change in personality to the cybernetic enhancements he had been given. by this point he had lost half his head and three of his limbs in battle, and so they were replaced with prosthetics and his artificial brain was enhanced with programming for metagross supercomputers. metagross are known for being assholes who think more like machines than living beings, so it was easy for his adoring fans to believe that anakin’s change of personality was no fault of his own.

he was purified by his children, luke and leia. they were battling rivals who later discovered that they were twins and figured out who their father was. meeting them, he felt human again for the first time when he was around them…then they told him they wanted to defeat the evil darth vader and darth sidious and restore balance to orre, and he was just. well this is awkward.

his first instinct was to just kill his children but something held him back. so instead of killing them, he accompanied them on pointless missions that would ultimately lead them nowhere near close to defeating him and sidious--just to keep them distracted. little did he know, the more he fought alongside them and spent time with them, the more his heart gauge was emptied and the closer he became to purification.

much like a shadow pokémon, the more he was purified, the more his body and brain resisted it. finally the temptation to stay shadow became too strong, at which point he told his kids he was vader, locked them up, and turned them over to sidious to dispose of them. they managed to escape, however, after which there was a double battle of luke and leia vs. vader and sidious. the twins found themselves quickly overwhelmed, and sidious was about to kill them--when the sight of the two children about to die in front of them instantly emptied the remainder of anakin’s heart gauge. finally feeling real love again for the first time in years, anakin killed his master and saved his twins. luke and leia then took him to a purification chamber to be fully restored.

CURRENT STATUS.

anakin has returned to preuzien to become one of its strategic gym leaders. his gym’s theme is sky battles, which are fought only by pokémon that can stay airborne such as flying-types and those with the ability to levitate. though this may seem to be restrictive, anakin can still fight with a diverse mixture of pokémon.

he’s actually a league member in two regions: preuzien, aka german prussia, and prutenia, the newly-instated old prussian nation. essentially he’s a diplomat but in many ways he’s the wrong choice because……darth vader, have you fucking met him? however, lotor deliberately chose someone who was angry and undiplomatic to fulfill this role because he wanted to make it very clear to the german prussians that the rights and sovereignty of the prūsai are completely non-negotiable and there is a guy in the prutenian league who will happily beat the shit out of anyone who says otherwise.

he and lotor have a very strained relationship. on one hand anakin has healed a lot since he left the sith, and he is very concerned because he sees lotor going down the same path as he did. but on the other hand he still has a long way to go yet acts like he’s 100% redeemed when he lectures lotor, and lotor sees right through this…then when lotor calls anakin out on the fact he still has issues, anakin gets all pissy. also, anakin correctly suspects that lotor is using him as an ally for his “chosen one” status, inviting him to the league and giving him a second chance in spite of him being vader because he wants to get on the legendaries’ good side by treating their chosen one well. basically them being colleagues is an Angry Bastard Disaster that they need a lot of sorting through if they are ever going to be on truly good terms.

one time anakin straight up “force choked” lotor using his psychic powers in a fit of rage. lotor taunted him by choking out the words “vader…you haven’t changed.” this could easily have led to lotor’s death, as anakin was highly emotionally charged, but instead of snapping his neck psychically at that moment he dropped him to the floor and left the room. a sign of hope in their relationship perhaps?

honestly he’s? still a fucking mess??? like just because he left the sith doesn’t mean his issues are over. he’s still angry over his mother’s death and over padmé’s death, and now he’s angry that he let palpatine manipulate him and suffers from crippling guilt that he nearly killed his two kids. not to mention psychologically he’s part machine now so he has forgotten how to be human in some ways, and it’s in this way that he still hasn’t stopped being vader.

he doesn’t feel love for anyone except his twins, majjis, and padmé. he feels small likings toward other people and pokémon and he is trying to turn that into something deeper, but he’s still extremely stunted.

he gets terribly impatient with humans when they’re not as precise or as exacting as he is. in the og movies darth vader hated anything that he perceived to be incompetence, and anakin is the same way…except now that he’s part metagross, his standard of “competence” is so far above anything humans can do that he inevitably gets irritated and lashes out at people just for being human.

he’s lost all interest in “the little things.” he doesn’t appreciate the warmth of a sunny day or the coolness of a soft breeze or seeing a pretty looking bug on the sidewalk or anything like that, the only thing he is fixated on 24/7 is sharpening his intellect. he’s kind of like sabrina in that way.

MISC.

this would be his battle theme, full stop.

he has an aegislash variant that is basically a lightsaber: the hilt is metal but the blade is pure energy.

he is an overprotective dad and in that way he’s kind of a hypocrite, because of how he was once the biggest threat to his kids before he reformed. he gets rEAL FUCKING ANGRY when leia starts dating han solo, saying he’s just a street rat from orre and he’ll eventually stab her in the back and she’s like do i need to remind you of how you almost killed us?

he doesn’t need to hold out his hand to force choke someone bc that’s not how psychic powers in pokéverse work, he just does it because he’s a dramatic little bitch

he eventually has five grandchildren, all of which he gets overprotective toward. on luke’s side: ben skywalker. on leia’s side: jaina, jacen, anakin and ren solo. and if you thought him disliking han solo was bad, you should see his reaction when ren starts dating palpatine’s granddaughter rey…he just tENSES any time he’s around her saying i sense a great potential for evil in her and his kids are like oh really, well we’ve been sensing that in YOU ever since we met you and we don’t judge, so………damn i hate canon reylo but i mean it could work in an AU where kylo ren was never evil

#word of god™. || tian speaks #forcefuried

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pass-the-bechdel · 7 years ago

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Marvel Cinematic Universe: The Incredible Hulk (2008)

Does it pass the Bechdel Test?

No.

How many female characters (with names and lines) are there?

Two (20% of cast).

How many male characters (with names and lines) are there?

Eight.

Positive Content Rating:

Three.

General Film Quality:

Not as bad as everyone seems to remember, but also, not good.

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) UNDER THE CUT:

Passing the Bechdel:

Martina barely has lines to start with, and she’s not even in the same country as Betty, so...no.

Female characters:

Martina.

Betty Ross.

Male characters:

Bruce Banner.

General Ross.

Joe.

Emil Blonsky.

Stanley.

Jim Wilson.

Samuel Sterns.

Tony Stark.

OTHER NOTES:

Bruce sees a bunch of guys harrassing Martina, and he almost walks away to avoid a conflict that could set off the Hulk, but then he thinks better of it and comes back to confront the guys and save the girl. It’s a shorthand way of showing the audience that Bruce is a good guy, not letting his own fear get in the way of doing the right thing, blah blah. I support that message, obviously, but I do wish they wouldn’t use ‘woman in jeopardy’ as their go-to method for proving something about a man. Martina only exists in the film for this purpose, she’s just a pretty prop so Bruce can prove his morals, and that’s not cool. Female characters existing only as props is not cool, and violence against women being used to demonstrate/further a man’s story isn’t cool either. Get a better lazy shorthand, movie.

Lou Ferrigno cameo is clearly the highlight of the whole film.

At least 60% of Betty’s lines are just her saying ‘Bruce’ with different intonations, usually as a question. “Bruce?” she whispers. “Bruce?!” she calls. “BRUCE!!!” she screams. She also almost definitely yells it in slow motion with the sound cut out during dramatic climactic points in action scenes. I don’t know, I didn’t think to take note of that.

Oh. This movie. It might be the first of the MCU films I ever saw, back before they had committed to the idea of actually doing a Cinematic Universe, so it was just ‘a Hulk film’ that I watched, filed as ‘bad’ in my brain, and never revisited again, even after the MCU got going in earnest and - years later - I got sucked into the vortex and wound up watching and re-watching all the movies in order. It’s easy to leave this film out of the chronology (and many people do); despite a totally pointless scene with Tony Stark at the end of the movie, it doesn’t actually tie in to the rest of the MCU in any meaningful way, and as an intro to the Hulk it isn’t really necessary: firstly, because most people who don’t live under rocks already know who the Hulk is from popular culture, and secondly, for anyone else, they get a perfectly serviceable introduction to him in his next film appearance (The Avengers), in which the role has been recast with Mark Ruffalo, who plays Bruce Banner/Hulk in every future MCU film and leaves this Edward Norton vehicle as a weird outlier better forgotten than incorporated into one’s understanding of the character. Edward Norton is a fantastic actor who has done so much great work over the years, but this was not a good role for him, and having rewatched this movie now nearly a decade after seeing it the first time, I’ll probably go back to giving it a miss whenever I trawl through the MCU. It’s a film with, basically, nothing to offer, neither as a standalone nor as part of a wider franchise. That’s a pretty sad indictment, but there it is.

Is this the worst film in the MCU pantheon to date? Probably. Not absolutely - I think the door remains open for debate (the other contenders for the title, we’ll get to in due time). The thing is, this movie is not as bad as history remembers it: most of it is actually fairly decent. Not remarkable, not impressive, but decent in the sense that it is stock-standard playing to expectation, it isn’t making any negative waves, it’s just there. The bad rep this movie has is owed almost exclusively to the way it ends, with an embarassing and meaningless Hulk/Abomination battle in which the CGI is absolutely not capable of upholding even the basic visual storytelling of two beast-creatures whaling on each other. Bonus features of that fight include: Hulk clapping his hands to put out a fire and SAVE HIS LOVE, and a truly abysmal use of the iconic ‘HULK SMASH!’ line. By the time the final fight mercifully ends, any and all goodwill the rest of the film had built up has been obliterated, much like the neighbourhood and the lives of all those poor collateral-damage civilians that no one cares about. Some beast-creatures whaled on each other in shitty CGI. That’s what we came for, right?

What makes this ending so particularly bad is how out-of-place it is in the rest of the narrative. Yeah, we 100% EXPECT a Boss Battle at the end, because that’s the formula for these things, but the movie does a really awkward job of not actually building up to that climax in a meaningful way that lets it feel earned rather than perfunctory. Let’s rewind; the premise of the whole film is that Bruce Banner is trying to keep his Hulky genetics out of the hands of the military, specifically a program overseen by General Ross, who happens to be the father of Bruce’s former co-worker/lover Betty, because of course he is. This detail is not actually important for any reason, it’s just an excuse for Bruce and Ross to conflict over Betty like she’s a cool shiny object, because ultimately she has no more narrative function than Martina the hot Brazilian chick. Anyway: Bruce is on the run from Ross, Ross is on the hunt for Bruce so that he can experiment on him forevermore, and Betty is there sometimes to say Bruce’s name as a question. Ross chases Bruce with lots of army guys, Bruce Hulks out at various points so that the action sequences can involve more than Edward Norton running away, and there’s a long-term goal for Bruce in the form of getting some Science to another Scientist so that they can Science a cure for his Hulky genes and he can stop running once and for all (it doesn’t work). It’s not a very inspiring script. It’s fairly straight-forward and predictable, but there’s nothing especially bad about it other than the pointlessness of Betty (the same as this is a front-runner for the MCU’s worst film so far, Betty is a strong contender for Worst Inclusion of A Useless Love Interest). Norton may not be a great Bruce Banner, but he does a solid job of giving weight to Bruce’s plight, and the overall effect is at least passable as a film, if forgettable. The problem here is Emil Blonsky, the marine tasked by Ross to head the operation to capture Banner, and the man who eventually becomes the Abomination whom Hulk battles in that cringe-worthy film climax. And the problem with Blonsky is not that he’s some kind of weak link in the script. The problem is, he’s the best character in the movie.

Maybe it’s just that Tim Roth is too good for the material (he is), but Blonsky is easily the most dynamic person in an otherwise flat film, and he’s the only character whose narrative arc isn’t instantly predictable the moment he steps on screen. He’s a consummate soldier, all about the job, and getting into the thick of things himself to make sure it gets done right. His road to becoming Abomination begins partway into the film, as Blonsky grapples with the aftermath of his first encounter with the Hulk - for which he was brutally unprepared due to Ross’ failure to provide essential mission intel - which led to the death of many of Blonsky’s men. As Ross comes clean about the super-soldier serum experiments that created the Hulk, he plucks at a few delicate nerves, noting the physical toll that years of service have taken on Blonsky’s body. Blonsky laments that he can’t take the experience he has now and put it into the body he had a decade ago; Ross suggests that, maybe, they can arrange something kinda like that. It isn’t played as outright manipulation - Ross has just told Blonsky that there were other experimental treatments in the same line as Banner’s work, and Blonsky knows what conversation they’re really having and has already seen what the side-effects could be if it goes badly - but there is plain prompting from Ross, to say nothing of the treatments he then actively facilitates, most notably the second dose which he offers despite having originally stated that if Blonsky experienced any adverse effects (which at that point he has, in limited capacity) the treatments would cease. It’s a situation in which Blonsky rapidly loses his agency, and for which Ross isn’t even a little bit blameless. What’s significant about this is not just that Ross is the ‘villain behind the villain’ in this case, but that Blonsky really...isn’t a villain in the first place.

Now, ‘villains’ in stories (and especially comics) who start out innocent/unlucky/well-intentioned and then become twisted are not uncommon, but the key to making those narratives work is that the story acknowledges the pathos of that journey; that this person never meant to end up as the villain, and it’s a sad turn of events that brought them down that road despite themselves. This is where things fall apart for this movie, because they kinda, oops, forgot to either (1) make Blonsky’s pre-serum behaviour clearly villainous, or (2) match his unwilling descent into villainy with a tone of empathy and regret for how his character has been turned astray. He isn’t presented as some paragon of goodness to be torn down, but he also doesn’t act maliciously or imply that he draws sadistic pleasure from his work. He consents to that first dose of serum, but it isn’t for evil reasons, he’s not bloodthirsty, he’s not going after the Hulk as a personal vendetta: the primary emotional motivation he displays is curiosity. He wants to get the job done, and he recognises the threat that Hulk represents, and he’s interested in finding out exactly what kind of a world he’s just been looped into. He may be antagonistically positioned against the protagonist of the film, but his intentions aren’t reprehensible from any angle. Thing is, the serum he takes is depicted as having a narcotic effect, impairing his judgment and fostering an escalating addiction that ultimately creates the Abomination; it’s all downhill for Blonsky after that first dose, the situation spins wildly out of his control, and he loses himself in the process. This is where the pathos should fit in as an essentially good (or at least neutral) person is lost to this drug, but it doesn’t. Instead, Blonsky becomes Abomination for the final act of the movie, and all of his characterisation evaporates so that he can just mindlessly smash things for no apparent reason. If he had been shown to be someone who engages in unnecessary violence and/or enjoys it at some prior point, then Abomination would be an escalation of existing villainous predilections, and it would work, but that isn’t the case. Where Hulk operates off an established base of anger/raised heart-rate/physiological response to heightened situations, and his destructive tendencies and absence of higher cognitive functions make sense in that context of reactionary hind-brain behaviour, Abomination has no established parameters or reasons for developing as he does, and searching the only information we have - Blonsky’s characterisation - for answers turns up no satisfactory results. Abomination’s rampage has nothing to do with ‘getting the job done’ (Banner is in Ross’ custody by that point in the film, in fact, so the job is already done), nor does it have anything to do with the Hulk himself - Blonsky and Banner never had specific personal beef with one another that would make a final confrontation meaningful (Bruce doesn’t even know who the Abomination is/was) - so Abomination’s entire existence feels pretty pointless. It’s just there so that Hulk can pick on someone his own size.

The final fight scene is objectively bad from a technical standpoint, with the dodgy CGI and the way-too-corny contrivances and the muddy uninspired visual mess of it all: it’s just plain bad to watch, but it is also not only devoid of emotional relevance or weight, it’s devoid of emotional logic. We’ve watched this process of Blonsky ‘becoming a monster’ in a literal sense, and it’s been the only part of the movie with any life in it (it’s not a deep well of complexity, but again, I think it works because Tim Roth is fucking making it work), but a boss fight is not a fulfilling conclusion to that narrative because we haven’t been given clear stakes in the outcome. Considering that Blonsky ends up a victim of Ross much the same as Bruce Banner is, it really should be Ross’ villainy that is ultimately defeated to bring us a satisfying conclusion, but the film forgets its own narrative in the course of pretending that Blonsky was the main bad guy all along, to such an extent that it bizarrely turns around and rewards Ross in the end. After transforming into Abomination, no one so much as suggests that Blonsky is still in there somewhere (his name is not even mentioned), he’s just a beast-creature now, and Ross gets to keep him and do all that fun experimenting that he wanted Hulk for this whole time, and no one challenges the idea. Remember how the whole movie was about Bruce trying NOT to get caught and experimented on forevermore by the military? Remember how that’s supposed to be a bad thing that Good Guys want to stop? Eh, who cares? Apparently not Bruce Banner, whose upstanding morals don’t extend far enough to want to save anyone else from the fate he has thwarted for himself. Not very heroic, just kinda leaving some other dude to take your place. As hardcore as Bruce was about keeping the formula out of Ross’ hands, etc, apparently he has no qualms about this derivative, and he just whistles on out of there, and that’s it. The end. Not a second thought for Blonsky’s fate, no fulfilling closure for Bruce’s ACTUAL villain beef with Ross, the bad guy gets what he wants and no one cares, the good guy completely forgets the ideals that he was fighting for the entire time and therefore kiiinda renders the whole journey of the film pointless, and worst of all, there’s no sense that the story comes to these conclusions deliberately, that it’s supposed to be off-kilter in any of these ways. It’s like they got to the final act and literally forgot everything that had happened in the film previously so they just stopped without actually closing any of the storylines, it’s a totally incongruous ending.

I’ve focused largely on how much they screwed over Blonsky in this process because I considered him the film’s saving grace the rest of the time, but really, the ending screws over every character, theme, and narrative thread in the whole story, and that’s the huge disconnect that leaves the audience remembering a bad film, not just a bad ending. Granted, it wasn’t a good film to start with, and if you were less engaged with Blonsky than I was and you didn’t latch on to one of the other slim elements the story offered instead, then the whole thing turning to shit in the end really can’t have been much of a loss. It’s not that they didn’t, at moments, have the makings of something that might be good, or glimmers in scenes that suggested a quality idea that might have shone if someone had polished it a little better. For anyone reading this and going ‘well, don’t you know they had loads of behind-the-scenes issues with redrafting the script and other bullshit?’, yes, I am aware of that. Thing is, it shouldn’t matter. A 150-million dollar major Hollywood franchise project doesn’t get to use ‘oh, we just didn’t really bother making sure the script made basic sense before we filmed it’ as a valid excuse. If everyone’s doing their jobs properly the way they should be at this level of the industry, then the audience shouldn’t be able to see your BTS issues bleeding all over the finished product; major script redrafts should be a Did You Know? trivia point, not an ‘oh, NOW I get what went wrong here’ explanation. At the end of the day, no one cared enough about making this a movie that would matter in the long run for an expansive Cinematic Universe. Tanking the whole film into a forgettable mistake that viewers would gladly leave out of their Marvel marathons was, ultimately, the one thing they did successfully.

#Marvel Cinematic Universe #The Incredible Hulk #MCU #Bechdel Test #female representation

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daekie · 7 years ago

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the entire history of human desire takes about seventy minutes to tell

(unfortunately, we don’t have that kind of time. forget the dragon, leave the gun on the table, this has nothing to do with happiness. let’s jump ahead to the moment of epiphany, in gold light, as the camera pans to where the action is) - richard siken, litany in which certain things are crossed out

Happy holidays, @heavenseveneleven, who I can’t @ for some reason! Your SS mentioned you liked Jodariel and Pamitha’s dynamic, so I thought about the fact they’re both soldiers who committed war crimes, regretted them, and ran from there.

Crossposted to AO3 where...the formatting is better, haha, sorry. Fic under the cut.

This much is simple – Jodariel has never had any love lost for Harps, except maybe too far back in her childhood for anyone in the Downside with her to know; her blood family is long gone, years and years, lost to disease and age and the war (and the Downside, once; she remembers little of her uncle, thrown to the depths when she was a child, far younger than their stowaway girl – she doesn’t even remember his crime, because it was never important to know – well, it was never important for her to know). She has never thought kindly of a Harp except in the privacy of her own unconscious – She freed those fledglings and knew her guilt immediately, heavy on her shoulders like an unfathomable weight; there was no one to stop her when she turned herself in, no one to reach to her and beg and whisper. She told no one. It was quick and quiet and they chained her to the cage like they would any dissenter, any criminal, and the Archjustice was a looming figure with slender black-gloved hands clasped around his gavel and it was simple, simple like an execution, like the way a blade is a weapon regardless of what you do with it because it shouldn’t be on its’ own. Jodariel thought that, maybe, she would have died there on the rocks like so many others, her body dashed into the waters, her death a penance repaid the only way she could –

Nothing is ever that simple.

She drags herself out of the wreckage of her cage and takes one of the snapped bars as a weapon, sharpening it against the rocks, using other broken aspects of the cage to splint her wounds. Let Howlers come. She is not dead, and maybe she won’t be, and maybe that’s her true punishment – to live where her fellows-in-arms died, to do something they would have never condoned and to live through it all, and to live and to live and

(jodariel has not been in the downside the longest; but for those who entered human, and those that are still alive and no longer human, she could be a rallying point. she doesn’t want to be. she doesn’t think anything about herself is worthy of glory, anymore.

for years and years she doesn’t think about hedwyn or any of her children, not-blood but that doesn’t matter, because all she can picture is how disappointed any of them would be in what she did and what she’s done. she should be no one’s captain. she doesn’t deserve it.) ------ This much is simple - Pamitha is not born to glory. Few Harps are, anymore; they are a dying empire, driven back further and further every year by the Commonwealth’s soldiers on the Bloodborder – because you must train a Harp for battle, careful; but they can teach a Cur to hold a knife in its’ mouth and send it out to die, and there are fewer Harps than there are everything else. They send fledglings out to battle, nowadays, and Pamitha used to care less about that, because the Commonwealth, the Commonwealth has taken everything from them –

She cares a lot about it, now; but oh, darling, there’s nothing she can do down here. It’s easier to drink your troubles away, instead, because tales of the Nightwings and their talent and their ability to let one go free are old. Those stories are so old she doesn’t know who tells them, anymore; Crones, mostly, and there are whispers here-and-there about benefactors who will reward you if you bring them old Nightwing robes, sigils, symbols, anything that could let that triumvirate raise again – it’s just all stupid fucking stories. Pamitha doesn’t care. The Nightwings won’t come for her, and even if they did and somehow her-and-Tamitha won (even that is a far-off dream, because Tamitha speaks to her rarely or not at all; it’s hard to reconcile this vicious warhawk with the little girl she remembers years ago, a little girl who had nightmares of soldiers coming for her and snatching her twin away), she wouldn’t deserve it. Scribes only know Pamitha doesn’t deserve anything better than this.

Talking to Tamitha is like ripping open a wound every time. They are not allies. They are not friends. Tamitha shudders and turns away every time Pamitha calls her sister, sister (most times, but some times she lashes out and screams and scratches and Pamitha knows she’s not wanted and she runs, she runs) and it makes something ugly and silver-vicious curl up in her gut like do you know what I fucking sacrificed for you, do you know what I would have given for you, they lied but that shouldn’t mean anything now sister sister sister please and she says nothing and keeps drinking. The alcohol never ends. It doesn’t taste good but she doesn’t deserve something that tastes good. ------ Jodariel used to be a weapon. She still is. She just isn’t wielded anymore. ------ Pamitha was raised to be a weapon and she cut down her sister. Or she might as well have, anyways. What does it matter she didn’t mean for this to happen? It’s all her fault the way Tamitha looks at her nowadays. ------ (Hedwyn looks at her like she’s done nothing wrong. She’s proud of him, after all this time, but she can’t help but have to bite back that reflexive hatred when he talks about the woman he was in love with because she’s a Harp, Hedwyn, you know what they did to your mother, you know what they did to her entire patrol, she was toying with you and she wasn’t cast down so she wanted this to happen to you because Harps don’t care about you or any of us but she swallows it down. She doesn’t tell him her opinions on Fikani and he doesn’t ask, and in time, it passes from an uneasy quiet to less of a worry.) ------ Pamitha flirts like it’s a game, because it is, and she always did even before all of this – it was typical, really, because if you were too close to someone and they were shot down you’d have nothing left. It was typical for her regiment; they were all sisters-in-arms, close as could be, but if they weren’t blood-sisters none of them were too close. You won’t suffer lover’s-loss grief if you weren’t close like that, was always the thought, and that’s how it is; she should not mourn her lost, she should look towards what she can do, but -

there’s nothing she can do down here. It was all for nothing. All of it was for nothing. Nobody ever gets out of here. ------ Nobody ever gets out of here. ------ Nobody ever gets out of here. ------ Except, the thing is, sometimes they do. ------ Jodariel doesn’t expect anything. She’s trained herself not to expect anything; the concept of a literate person only being exiled now only brings scorn to her. How would it be kept so quiet, with a skill like that, after years and years and so many generations only hearing of reading-and-writing as the ultimate crime? It’s not that she necessarily must agree with her country’s traditions, but it’s been so long and it’s what she has to hold onto; her morality, her rules, in the face of who-knows-how-long-here, forever and ever and ever. Downside is a disorderly wasteland and always will be; the land breathes death and nomadic lifestyles are a necessity. There’s no rules to be made in that.

The Reader is not the first. But she is the first still alive.

Sometimes, Jodariel thinks, this brave young woman might make the world better. This woman, almost still a girl in comparison, who knows the ghosts of the past lurking in these crystals and is looked at by the Minstrel like a child savior. She tries to keep herself realistic, because there is nothing but harm in that hope, but – still. Sometimes. She can see what might be, when the weight of her horns is too much for her, and it lets her get up for one more day like it’s not so agonizing, and things hurt a little less. There’s hope, maybe. Sometimes it’s even possible to believe in it. ------ Pamitha wakes up every day and hates it, for months, for years; all she thinks is that she’s ruined it, she’s ruined her life and Tamitha’s life and for nothing except the fact that some Commonwealth citizens didn’t die then. Looking back, it seems pointless, and why has she done any of it? What has she gotten out of this? Every day is more of the same. She drinks, she lounges, she plays up the careless hedonist role that half of the flock there thinks she is. There’s no hope for anything to get better. Until there is.

She’ll look back on it in years to come and think that this ridiculous caravan trundling through the territory, a woman in a robe and a woman with horns and strains of song, was the best thing for her. Not now, though. Now she just doesn’t know what to think of these people – unafraid of the Harps threatening them, even cocky, but not threatening too much violence either.

The conversation is easy. It feels so easy, after the words are out of her mouth. Even during the match when she can feel Tamitha’s glare at all times, bloody eye burning holes in her skin, she can ignore it; she can think I’m a Nightwing, I’m one of them, this is how people escape and I could be part of this story and part of this legacy and she can ignore it for a little while. (They win and she goes with them and it doesn’t feel like home, not really, not yet; but there is a tousle-haired girl with too-clear eyes and a young man with a kind, even voice and she might be the only Harp there – and Captain Jodariel won’t give her the time of day, but it’s fine, really, it’s fine - well, it will be, someday. She doesn’t feel so alone anymore. Everyone in this triumvirate is an outcast just like her. She isn’t so alone anymore.

If the Reader gets drunk off of Pamitha’s moonshine and she has to suggest moderation, then the realization that she might be a guiding figure isn’t as harsh as it would have been only some moons ago.) ------ The Nightwings are a home for the downtrodden and the unseen and the odd nowadays. Have you heard the whispers? They field Cur-Harp-Savage and Demon-Wyrm-Crone with equal abandon, no care for how the races usually divide; their tactician, their Reader, is a woman who couldn’t be too far into adult age – or that’s what the whispers say. The whispers say, too, that the Nightwings are good people at heart if distracted, never able to stay, always packing up and leaving for some far-off fight as the stars prophecy every night.

Sometimes people say the way their Harp, with her wild hair and her leisurely way of speaking, looks at their Demon – they say it borders on the intimate.

But that wouldn’t be true, would it? Captain Jodariel would never do more than tolerate a Harp. We all know exiles who used to be soldiers; they’re all like that, aren’t they?

Aren’t they? ------ It’s a glance here and there, skin touching for a long moment before they pull apart; it takes time. Any relationship takes time. There is the Reader with her favorite ghost – they’ve all met Sandra and the Beyonders, by now, have been through those trials and emerged stronger (and more than a little bit disoriented for a few minutes after) – and they’ve heard how fondly both women talk of each other, like despite their differences – but that, too, took years to build. People have gone home. Rukey Greentail – she waved him goodbye as the light took him back to his home.

Pamitha has thought about ascension a few times and she’s found it lacking. The Commonwealth still exists, and her race gets smaller and smaller every day; even if through some unknowable logic the Reader decided it was her time, she could never fit in with her brethren if they let her leave and go home, really go home. You don’t just regrow parts of your wings like that.

The Minstrel says nothing about her troubles. She wonders about him, when the days are bad and she finds refuge in drink, or when a rite goes poorly and she can’t help but feel her reactions were too slow and she ruined it for the rest. Him and the Gate Guardian (and what a woman that Guardian is; might as well have been chiseled out of stone, so physically perfect Pamitha always has to do a doubletake because she always expects something – humanizing, maybe? But no, no; Celeste’s eyes have kindness in them but that seems to be it, there’s nothing secret she can find, no hidden wishes or hidden worries) look at each other the way she thinks she used to look at Tamitha. (Well. The way she thinks she used to look at Tamitha. Thinking about her sister isn’t like tearing open a wound, anymore, but it still hurts and it always will. There’s nothing there she can save, and she was never going to save anyone in the first place with her betrayal, and she will have to live with her failure for as long as she draws breath.)

These things take time. Pamitha stops feeling like her entire life has to be repentance and Jodariel learns there’s more to learn than hatred and that people can make something new, down here. Something different. Something better.

There is time to build their own little peace treaty. Just the two of them. ------ (One day Pamitha falls asleep on Jodariel’s shoulder, head inclined; and Jodariel knows that she would do anything for this woman - this woman who would have once been her truest enemy. She's free to be tender. Her ghosts are quiet now. She's laid them to rest as she should have so long ago.

One day one of them might go free without the other, and they both know this, but for now – for now they have each other.)

#sggsecretsanta17 #pyre #heavenseveneleven #pamitha theyn #daestuff #jodariel (pyre)#sgg

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nochocolate · 8 years ago

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Hey, what's Toriels deal with Defending humans and thier wrongful action towards her monsters? Humans set war on them for simply being powerful magic users, killed off 2/3 of the race. Trapped them underground, bump thier trash on them. Then killed both thier children. But Toriels gets upset when Asgore sets war back at them? I have the impression that she self hates a bit. Like trapped in the Ruins she could have educated the monsters, set an example that they're not bad. But just shuns all.

(undertale spoilers)

Not quite sure where you found your statistic of “killed off 2/3 of the race,” but there is no denying that many monsters lost their lives.

Toriel may have flaws in her approach, but whether her decision was morally ethical or not is subjective. Unlike Asgore, Toriel sees vengeance as wrong. In her eyes, violence begets more violence, and nothing is worth the cost of a life. However, Toriel appears to be alone in this thinking. Asgore’s declaration of war may have been fueled by anger and vengeance, but this vow to destroy humanity brings hope back to the monsters.

ASGORE:I remember the day after my son died.The entire underground was devoid of hope.The future had once again been taken from us by the humans.In a fit of anger, I declared war.I said that I would destroy any human that came here.I would use their souls to become godlike……and free us from this terrible prison.Then, I would destroy humanity…And let monsters rule the surface, in peace.Soon, the people’s hopes returned.

In the genocide route, Gerson reveals that he and Asgore actually agreed that escaping from the underground was a bad idea. He felt betrayed when Asgore changed his mind.

GERSON:Long ago, ASGORE and I agreed that escaping would be pointless…Since once we left, humans would just kill us.I felt a little betrayed when he eventually changed his mind.But now, I think… Maybe he was right to.‘Cause after all, even though we never escaped…A human’s killing us anyway, ain’t that right?

However, Toriel is aware that Asgore does not really want to hurt anyone and that his declaration was not as genuine as others thought.

TORIEL:If you really wanted to free our kind…You could have gone through the barrier after you got ONE SOUL……taken six SOULs from the humans, then come back and freed everyone peacefully.But instead, you made everyone live in despair…Because you would rather wait here, meekly hoping another human never comes.ASGORE:…Tori…You’re right…I am a miserable creature…

Asgore says Toriel was disgusted with his actions and left, which may have not been the best option for her kingdom, but it may have felt like the only option for her. While it’s specified as to why Asgore did not cross the barrier with one soul to destroy humanity, it’s never clarified as to why Toriel didn’t try something besides leaving. Perhaps she found Asgore inconsolable and felt the only way to stop him was to kill him, but unable to do that, she left instead. Perhaps she lost faith in her people when she saw the other monsters find hope in his vengeance, and felt the only thing she could do was isolate herself. Once alone, the hatred she harbored against him prevented her from being able to face him again.

But the ultimate reason Toriel does not agree with Asgore’s vow of vengeance is that she does not condone sacrificing lives for freedom.

TORIEL:Your adventure must have been so treacherous.…and ultimately, it would burden you with a horrible choice.To leave this place, you would have to take the life of another person.You would have to defeat ASGORE.However… I realized…I cannot allow that.It is not right to sacrifice someone simply to let someone leave here.Is that not what I have been trying to prevent this whole time?So, for now, let us suspend this battle.As terrible as ASGORE is…He deserves mercy, too.

#undertale #toriel #toriel dreemurr #asgore #asgore dreemurr #ut #undertale spoilers #nochocolate asks #longtalejacinta #Mod Ellipsis #Toriel definitely could have tried harder #to change the monsters' minds #but maybe she didn't want to take their hope away #but there is nothing wrong with not wanting vengeance

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rayinberkeley · 7 years ago

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Satire is supposed to sting

but of course offended people are pissed off at @MotherJones and the Festival of Slights.

Festival of Slights, the 1st Night: Trump’s Book of Hitler Speeches Trump is given a book of Hitler’s speeches. He claims he was given it to him by a Jew, but the man he said gave it to him disagrees on which book, and that he’s a Jew at all. “Trump, like a man who reads Playboy for the articles, may have read Hitler for the communication strategies. Brenner speculated he was looking to the Nazi leader for a final solution to his own ultimate fear: failure.” Yes, folks, he has this book by his own admission, and it’s clear he’s read it well.

Festival of Slights, the 2nd Night: The Sheriff’s Star “The worst people in this country saw [Trump]’s message and took it as they saw fit. And yet Donald Trump in his response chose not to condemn them, the anti-Semites who, by his argument were obviously misinterpreting the image, but the media.” Funny how he can only condemn the media, just like Hitler, but never the Nazis.

Festival of Slights, the 3rd Night: “Holocaust Centers” Ah, who could forget Spicy? “Someone as despicable as Hitler didn’t even sink to using chemical weapons.” Apparently the Jews were killed with teddy bears and kindness? Oh, but Assad was worse because he used them on his own people! Ooooh... and “Holocaust centers.” Gotcha, big guy.

Festival of Slights, the 4th Night: “Short Guys That Wear Yarmulkes” George Soros: The Boogeyman to the Neocons. Well, Roy Moore doesn’t like him much: “Soros comes from another world that I don’t identify with..... he’s still going to the same place that people who don’t recognize God and morality and accept his salvation are going. And that’s not a good place.” He’s a Jew who doesn’t recognize God? But no worry, Moore has a lawyer who’s a Ja-hoooew, so it’s cool. Trump endorsed this guy. But hey, According to a 1991 book by John O’Donnell, the former head of one of Trump’s casinos, the future president once complained that the casino had hired a black man, rather than “short guys that wear yarmulkes,” to work in its finance department. So it’s a compliment!

Festival of Slights, the 5th Night: Trump’s Closing Argument to Voters Isn’t it interesting that short guys with yarmulkes aren’t to be trusted with the country’s money after all? And yet he put Kushner in charge of everything? This one ends well though, with that fabulous moment Spencer the Nazi was punched, which can’t happen often enough.

Festival of Slights, the 6th Night: The Jew Counter The choice of Fred Malek, once directed by Nixon’s guy to tally up the number of those suspicious evil Jews as though this were Herod’s term of office, to run the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. His 1971 “general plan to attack” was “we might be better served if a Republican partisan handled these briefings in the future.” That sounds about right for the GOP, this administration, and this “president.”

Festival of Slights, the 7th Night: The Holocaust Statement You may think liberals are the ones taking things out of context when Trump fails to mention Jews in a statement on Holocaust Memorial. But actually, it’s the Nazi groups in America who considered it “basically a subtle nod to us,” and rightwing Jews who were troubled, including the Republican Jewish Coalition and the Zionist Organization of America, both backed by Republican megadonor Sheldon Adelson. But you know, it’s all in the heads of the liberals, right?

Festival of Slights, the 8th Night: Charlottesville And finally, chants of “Jews will not replace us,” swastikas, calling Jews “Satan’s children,” chants of “Sieg heil,” and “blood and soil,” the Nazi racial purity slogan, as well as “white lives matter,” amidst violence that ended up in the deaths of three people. Who does he condemn from his golf course? Why, “hatred, bigotry, and violence on many sides, on many sides,” before retweeting something from one of their leaders. That’s okay. This ends in him not inviting disagreeing Jewish leaders to the White House��s Hanukkah party. Their own celebration, and they can’t come if they don’t agree they’re equally to blame for Nazism?

Personally I find it brilliant that Mother Jones took this disturbing route, but people gotta be all offended. Probably white non-Jewish people who didn’t say shit when things like this happened:

Or... way, waaaay worse:

So I’m going to document the offended ninnies on this post. Will be edited later. I’m sure speaking out is going to bring a shitstorm onto me, but dammit people, what’s offensive is having a Hitler in officer. And we do. Not commentary about it. And I guarantee someone’s gonna tell me “You don’t get to say what is and isn’t offensive,” because I’ve kicked this hornet’s nest before. I know the pattern. Dear god let’s go off another pointless deep end, why don’t we?

And by far my absolute favorite so far....

I love people who argue in nothing but cliche ways. “I’m not gonna bother with your kind. It would be pointless,” before whining about being attacked. The pseudo-intellectualism and anti-intellectualism mixed together is a strange cocktail. Anyone else surprised Rebecca didn’t say, “Good day, sir!” and then “I said GOOD DAY!” at least once in this exchange?

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parrotbeak · 8 years ago

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I wrote that Steven Universe-The Simpsons comparison with the decision to not mention the colonial angle. But it’s become difficult to read posts, some critical, some not, relating to any of the Earth-made gems and spot the same indifference that’s interwoven with my life as Indo. Hopefully this post educates a little on what it means (or can mean; I only speak for myself) to be caught in-between. I normally couldn’t care less, but in this one case, don’t interact if anti-crit or non-crit.

The don’t-think-this-is-all short of the Indo experience is that the Dutch way back figured it’d be nifty if the Dutch East Indies had a supply of loyal people with a reason to stay right where they are. Marriages between Dutch men and Indonesian women were motivated in order to produce a new identity of people that’d be invested in serving the DEI because that, the colony holding both roots, was their home. The duality of being Indo plays a role to this day, past the violence of 1940-1949, the unwelcome by the Netherlands to which the arrival of Indos (and Moluccans) was inconvenient as well as never supposed to happen, and the undealt-with trauma that followed when quietly adapting was all there was to do. I’m not going into detail, but for me, having been born decades after the end of the DEI, I miss the place. Rationally and morally that’s ridiculous, but emotionally it promises so many answers I’ll never get. A lot of my life perspectives are based on considerations of what being in-between means. And though I love the Netherlands dearly (culturally), being part Asian also makes me different and alerts me of just how much my country still hasn’t given its DEI history a place.

So, for me the theme of home in colonial and war context is big and SU lines that stand out to me include “I never asked for it to be this way. I never asked to be made!”, “I don't have memories of it, just feelings. I know I can never go back to Homeworld, but it's hard not to have some feelings for where you came from.”, “I've been fighting from the second I broke free of the Earth's crust, because of what YOU did to my colony! Because of what YOU did to my planet!”, “Who knows what they would do to me back home after what I did to Jasper? I can't go back to Homeworld and I can't stay here.” I’m going to go ahead requesting that if the urge comes to throw a “you’re projecting”, don’t, because odds are I know better just how much SU fails at all of this. These quotes are just a selection reminding what the show could've been and that the writers do have an understanding of what they’re pretending to dig into before disingenuously scrambling back to the Status Quo of everybody getting along because nothing has meaning. I could’ve done without them shoving that nonsense out to a worldwide audience.

With “On the Run”, I don’t see a tale of “just” abuse as I get the impression generally is interpreted. What I see is a child stolen from her destroyed heritage who is given nothing to cope with that and forge herself a new identity. The happy resolution of what Pearl in particular has done to her isn’t giving her better access to the story she belongs to, but eradicating her psychological ties to it. Like, I know what it’s like to have to think about this stuff and I can’t imagine external judgement and disassociation would’ve helped me figure things out. And that would've come from my own parent, not an ugly outsider like Pearl, let alone an outsider responsible for the loss. That’s the bizarre part of “On the Run”. It knows there’s an inherent attachment difference between Amethyst and Pearl, but it lies around it because otherwise Pearl can’t be easily forgiven. The rebellion was right, of course, but sometimes in doing the right thing you can’t avoid causing harm and your moral compass is still on display in how you deal with the aftermath of your actions. Although it is insult to injury to me that RPG are conditional freedom fighters. Each one of them was ultimately motivated by own gain. Ruby and Sapphire wanted each other, Pearl wanted Rose, and Rose wanted human men. This isn’t something I fault them for, but it’d be nice if the show was honest about it and acknowledged the current passivity. The only original CG who is pure and operates by ideology and who could’ve pulled off shutting out Amethyst’s ordeal while still not being insensitive is Bismuth. Instead, she gave Amethyst a kind of support Amethyst usually only gives, never receives. She even shared a non-judgy detail what amethysts are like, which we’ve never seen RPG do! How come Bismuth is the one whom we’re supposed to believe is bad?

Where Amethyst has meaning to me in direct likeness, Jasper is a bit more complex, falling into my sympathy through my grandfather and the (violence-induced) personality traits that have been passed on, being mine and also not. Notwithstanding what I judge, I cannot disapprove of Jasper on the whole. I’ve grown up knowing of a man who was overly dedicated to his role as soldier, who couldn’t keep his home, whose successes were of lesser meaning than his non-whiteness, and who in response only became more dedicated. Pride’s funny like that. I’m not against NPD and child soldier interpretations for Jasper, though I don’t share them, but I experience frustration that the nature of her existence in relation to her uncomfortable place in society is not picked up on as a possibility too. I wondered for a while why Lapis’s lack of (consistent) characterization does not stop peeps from acknowledging the potential she has (had) while Jasper gets more of a “either/or” treatment, until I realized that with Lapis too the home angle barely gets talked about. Ditto for Peridot; my main problem with her redemption is that it wasn’t completed. We only got to see how she came to love Earth, not how she disconnected from Homeworld. I’ve only twice seen a post bring that up. Same disregard is reason #~4 I’m not dealing with HBA fans anymore.

I dislike posts that suggest Amethyst owes RPG anything. I dislike posts that pose that Amethyst feels impure for not being a CG by choice. I dislike posts that place Amethyst and Jasper on incompatible ends as if they’re not different expressions of the same duality conflict. I do not tell what to ship or not, but from the above it should be clear that I hold a negative opinion of ships involving any member of the Famethyst with anyone who has proven not to understand (do the people who ship understand?). A particular thing that’s been on my mind with Jasper and Lapis ever since “a lapis terraforms” is the theory -- a miniscule possibility that makes my hair stand on end -- that Lapis was involved with the creation of Beta. Roughly the only reason I want her arc to continue is to have confirmation that that theory is wrong. It needs to be wrong. And on a final matter, trying to put this as delicately as I can: I hope all who have compared Homeworld to Nazi Germany come from a place where they own those words. Because there’s a distinct lack of other (and at times more fitting) comparisons. Like, I’ve only ever seen one person compare Homeworld’s deal to the invasion of the Americas and nothing on any other. Just in general, I’m not comfortable with understanding evil only as an externalized condition.

If possible, I’d like to see some more consideration whenever an Earth-made gem is the topic. A loss like theirs is a bad one, and even if you’d argue SU deals with it horribly in a way that can be ignored, both Amethyst and Jasper have made references to their troubles as a result of the loss. I may as well add, to any (future) writers, a piece of advice. When your worldbuilding requires you to create societal details, keep in mind that life’s stranger than fiction and nothing you can come up with doesn’t have a real-life parallel, sometimes with memory still fresh (there’s nothing colonial in SU that’s new to me) or even ongoing. It’s pointless to tell you to educate yourself because you can’t always do that if you don’t know what to look for (and as I can attest, even with a lead it can be difficult), but you can always be a decent person about what you try to do. If you decide on certain themes, carry them full and sincere instead of suddenly hiding behind claims of intentional naivity. It’s not difficult to think of how a certain event ought to affect each character and either reject the event if it gets in the way of the goal or plan for the outcome.

To end on a constructive note, these are specific things I would’ve liked SU to do instead:

Be clear about the place of imperfect gems in society, including the occurence of beta productions. We’ve got, like, five random sources right now and they’re contradicting and vague at best.

Be clear whether Rose (and any others of the pink court) is from Earth or not. It matters.

It creeps me out how the show refuses to decide whether Amethyst is an adult or a child and pretty much lets it depend on whether it wants Steven alone or not. Especially creepy given that Amethyst is stolen while Steven is the grand heir.

Be thorough on gem names. I never thought that moment where Peridot calls herself “Peridot” instead of her code was a moment for her, because in order to be “Peridot”, no other peridots may be around. No other peridots may share in what she has. That’s not “d’awww!”, that’s horrible. It bugs me with the Ruby Squad that we know them only by names Steven’s given them and I don’t get why we haven’t got a gem yet who chose their own name as a way to reject Homeworld’s identity rules. Only Amethyst’s scene of discovering her code made sense. (Needless to say, this non-commitment to name significance is why the DeMayo/Universe and Steven/Nora deals are laughable at best.)

Any plot necessity for Steven and Amethyst not to ask questions is dealt with by focussing on why they don’t ask questions. Fear of what emotions they might unleash? Fear of conflict between the teller and the not-teller? Fear of losing certainties? Fear of being unable to handle the answer? Fear of having to ask more questions? Or maybe they know the answers they need but not the questions to get at them. Stuff like this is like a sudoku; you have some answers and you know there’s more, but you can’t formulate a means to get those answers without finding the starter points first.

Garnet would’ve never said “For Amethyst to be herself“ in “Bubbled”, because, holy heckles, that’s rich coming from Ms. “We kept Amethyst”.

Going back to “Stronger Than You” after “Earthlings” leaves me with distaste. Jasper vaguely seems to respond to “And I won’t let you hurt my planet!”, a line that ought to hurt and infuriate her from what we know now, but it’s barely noticeable and gets contextually hidden by a closeup slasher smile. Either [my planet] should not be there or Jasper’s response should get focus. Yes, it’s Garnet’s song, but you can’t play over this like that. (I despise how the crewniverse hid an ethnicity context behind a sexuality one.)

Malachite would’ve gotten Sugilite’s deal (and Sugilite something much better). Lapis would’ve fused with the aim to trap the fusion and give the CGs a clean shot, having nothing better to hope for than that Steven would save her from whatever fate would be Jasper’s. But the unexpected happens when the two fuse, Lapis’s knowledge that this one act locks her from her home for good and Jasper’s resurfaced trauma of the loss of her home mixing into a singlemindedness neither could’ve foreseen or can control. Malachite would’ve escaped and periodically resurfaced as a break from the Cluster plotline and something fresh in the gem recovery narrative.

The moment Peridot brings up the plans for the Earth colony in "It Could've Been Great", Amethyst would not respond identical to Garnet and Pearl, but rather with a hint of wonder. She was made for it and it was supposed to be made for her; shameful but her story nonetheless. Peridot becomes the person she tries to get more information from what happened and what things could’ve been like after all this time of RPG proving untrustworthy. That ableist nonsense of “Beta” does not occur.

Amethyst and Jasper “bond” after one or the other figures out the other’s identity, if only by playing into Jasper’s anger. Amethyst later defects (though never betrays), resulting in her own time of learning on HW and later visiting/being sent to the pink station, where her story can overlap with whatever is the equivalent of the abduction arc. Consequences of Amethyst leaving are progress in Garnet’s growth into leadership, major self-reflection by Pearl, probs something like Peridot boosting the ranks (Lapis and Bismuth deserve time to themselves), and, since I want Amethyst and Lars to be BFFs over Purple Puma, for this to be a hit on Lars that later helps Amethyst understand RPG’s choices and for which she’d apologize/make up in the equivalent of “Wanted” or thereafter. It could probably also be incorporated in Lars reflecting on his lost friendship with Ronaldo and the choices he made there.

I’m not sure what I want for Jasper. Her getting corrupted is fine by me, especially if she’d be crucial in developing a healing process, but I really wish SU had handled corruption better. Finding peace with her peers would be nice. I’d also like her being able to empathize with HBA (while not tolerating her actions) in a “I’m not where I’m supposed to be and neither are you” sense.

SU avoids talking about it, but it stands to reason some of HW’s planets were populated. You don’t have an army if you don’t have wars. It’s been my interpretation for a long time that Yellowtail is fully alien, Vidalia possibly part alien, and Onion at least half alien, all survivors or descendents thereof from another colonized planet. And after that odd scene between Topaz and Onion, I like to think Topaz is from that colony and that her encounter on Earth makes her think and spread the anti-colonialism beyond Earth.

#SU critical #History #Cartoons #Colonialism

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proxylynn · 8 years ago

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Dreemurr Academy #4 (UnderFell Papyrus)

Dreemurr Academy, a prestigious closed-off college for monsters and humans alike of all ages and worlds.

This includes myself, though I'm sort of a in-between.

I'm Lynsie, the human anomaly. I'm a human, but I can do magic like monsters. I'm an oddball.

That's the thing about making a school that is open to multiple alternate dimensions. Weird things are bound to show up. Even a bunch of the same person. From what I saw on orientation day, the same faces are scattered around all around.

To fix these type of issues, everyone that has a multiple or doppelganger is given a school name so there's no confusion.

Other than that, it's fairly normal. The hierarchy is the simple.

The Deans are made up of the same people, skeleton monsters that go by the name of Gaster. One is a teacher of the Sciences, goes by Wingding. He's a kind and understanding man, but is known to pull a prank or two. They all speak in a typeface sign language but use telepathy magic so others understand. It's been said no one has ever heard their real voices and those that have are no longer at the academy.

Another Gaster dean teaches Home Economics, he goes by Wingy. He's a bubbly sweet guy that loves his work. Nothing makes him smile more than seeing the joy on a student's face when they take pride in being able to do something they first thought they couldn't.

Another Gaster dean teaches the studies of Magic, he is called Fall. At times, he can be cynical, malicious, and sarcastic. He has a commanding presence that exuded gravitas, authority and control, able to keep a class quiet without effort. Yet there is a kindness to him, it's rarely seen, but not unheard of.

Another Gaster dean teaches History, his nickname is Dings. A cold, bitter, and sometimes childish man. He tends to hold grudges against troublesome students and is extremely spiteful toward those whom he dislikes. Yet those that can take his punishments are rewarded with his respect. He is a teacher that commands respect and who's grades are earned with doom hanging over your head.

The Professors are also skeleton monsters, but not all are the same person. The Psychology professor is a guy named Papyrus but goes by Stretch. He's the favorite among students because he's so laid back. He chews a tooth pick in class to suppress his urge to smoke, but we all know he does so when on break. He's really good at reading students and helps out when able. All in all, he's the cool teacher.

The Literature professor is a Papyrus that is called Fell. He is the one teacher everyone dreads. Very strict and old fashioned. He does not tolerate interruptions and will humiliate those he feel need to be taken down a notch. Such things take there toll on him and often squeezes a stress ball that he keeps in his desk. But he is a very passionate man when it comes to his work and takes his subject seriously, even though this makes him into a bit of a grammar nazi which is why many students get low grades.

The Biology professor is a skeleton called Sans that sometimes goes by Classic, whatever that means. He is very cheesy and comes off as lazy, making puns that have people cringe yet secretly love them. He is very protective of his students and will go out of his way to help them. He does not tolerate bulling of any kind and can be quite scary. He's the second favorite among the students.

The Physical Education professor is also a Sans that goes by Pain. He is also a stern and old school type of teacher, only he tends to be more cruel in humiliation of students that are unprepared. While his scope is all around, he prefers the darker side of the study. Using borderline violence to weed out the weak that think taking his class is a easy A. There is mercy in his dojo, but it must be earned with blood, sweat, and tears.

The Students are broken into four groups based on which part of the four years they are currently in. The first years are called freshmen. Second years are sophomores. Third years are juniors. And fourth years are seniors. There are some variations on this topic, but this hierarchy of college students is still readily recognizable by everyone.

Me? This isn't my first rodeo but not my last. I'm a sophomore and have gotten the gist of who's who and what's what. I get along with students and teachers. I've always been a middle ground type of girl.

I didn't come looking for friends, but they just seemed to find me. Funny enough, my buddies are the brothers of the professors. Stretch's brother is a freshman, his name is Sans but goes by Rascal. Fell's brother, also a Sans, is a sophomore like me and goes by Edgy. Classic's brother is a Papyrus, a freshman that goes by Papy. And Pain's brother is a sophomore Papyrus by the name of Slim.

I've always been a tomboy. I prefer the guys company. They're different and fun, even if they can be a bit odd sometimes.

Rascal, as the nickname implies, is the school clown/prankster. He likes to test his limits and challenge authority, even dishevels his uniform to assert his individuality. He comes off as a slacker, but secretly very deep, clever, and loyal to a fault. He likes taking his brother's class so he can improve his skills with messing with people, mostly his brother as he disrupts his teachings when he sees a chance.

Edgy is shy around new people and slow to open up, enjoying a laugh with friends when able. Though he appears weak or even nerdy because of his glasses, he is far more tougher than he leads on. He doesn't take crap from anyone. When alone, he's angsty and borders on straight up angry. Getting a pissy attitude when annoyed. Like his brother, he is very passionate about literature and does his best to impress his brother, going so far as to become the teacher's pet.

Papy is easily the most loveable guy in the whole school. Very cheerful and optimistic, he tries his best no matter what. He doesn't like conflict and tries to keep his brother out of trouble when the teacher pulls a prank. I find it sweet of him to take his brother's class even though he doesn't particularly enjoy it, just so he can stay close to him. Like I said, this guy is a loveable soul.

Slim is easy going. He doesn't take things too seriously and never breaks a sweat over hard exams. The only thing that breaks his cool is his smoking, he really gets tense if he goes too long without his fix. He's incredibly smart and instinctual, good traits to have when dealing with his brother. While he does attend his brother's class, he merely does so as a request of his brother who likes to make sure he doesn't slack off due to not being challenged enough.

All of them are oddly related to each other in some form. Gaster's, Papyrus's, and Sans's are brothers. Yet I see them all as different people. I value them. They're helping me even if they don't know it. I am not so confident in myself. I tend to isolate myself, go at things lone wolf style. It's how I've always been. Then I met them and slowly my world began to expand bit by bit. I'm still not comfortable with others. But with them, I can step out from behind my mask for a bit, and really be myself around them.

Today is a typical day. Professor Fell has been lecturing us on the true meaning of the works of William Shakespeare for the last hour or so. Honestly I find his take on things to be very insightful, sometimes. Other times it seems he lets his own views on the matter bleed into his teachings, which is quite compromising.

"AND AS YOU CAN CLEARLY SEE, WHILE ENTERTAINING, SHAKESPEARE LACKED REALISTIC VIEWS. FOR EXAMPLE...ROMEO & JULIET. TWO YOUNG STAR-CROSSED LOVERS WHOSE DEATHS ULTIMATELY RECONCILE THEIR FEUDING FAMILIES. IT WAS AMONG SHAKESPEARE'S MOST POPULAR PLAYS DURING HIS LIFETIME AND ALONG WITH HAMLET, IS ONE OF HIS MOST FREQUENTLY PERFORMED PLAYS. TODAY, THE TITLE CHARACTERS ARE REGARDED AS ARCHETYPAL YOUNG LOVERS. BUT IS THAT REALLY THE CASE? THE TWO MEET AND HE FALLS HEAD OVER HEELS FOR HER. HE PROCEEDS TO ATTEMPT WOOING HER AND SOMEHOW SUCCEEDS. THEY REQUEST MARRIAGE AND ARE DENIED. SO WHAT DO THEY DO? THEY DISOBEY. AND WHAT DOES THAT GET THEM? LOVE? A HAPPY ENDING? NO! THEY DIE. NOT ONLY IS IT BEYOND FOOLISH, BUT IT IS UTTERLY POINTLESS."

"but that isn't the point."

All eyes go to Edgy.

"OH? DO ENLIGHTEN US."

"while romeo and juliet is sometimes considered to have no unifying theme, save that of young love. romeo and juliet have become emblematic of young lovers and doomed love. since it is such an obvious subject of the play, several scholars have explored the language and historical context behind the romance of the play. on their first meeting, romeo and juliet use a form of communication recommended by many etiquette authors in shakespeare's day: metaphor. by using metaphors of saints and sins, romeo was able to test juliet's feelings for him in a non-threatening way. this method was recommended by baldassare castiglione, whose works had been translated into english by this time. he pointed out that if a man used a metaphor as an invitation, the woman could pretend she did not understand him, and he could retreat without losing honor."

Time to throw my metaphorical hat into this ring.

"Not to mention Juliet, however, participates in the metaphor and expands on it. The religious metaphors of 'shrine', 'pilgrim', and 'saint' were fashionable in the poetry of the time and more likely to be understood as romantic rather than blasphemous, as the concept of sainthood was associated with the Catholicism of an earlier age. Later in the play, Shakespeare removes the more daring allusions to Christ's resurrection in the tomb he found in his source work: Brooke's Romeus and Juliet."

"GO ON."

"In the later balcony scene, Shakespeare has Romeo overhear Juliet's soliloquy, but in Brooke's version of the story, her declaration is done alone. By bringing Romeo into the scene to eavesdrop, Shakespeare breaks from the normal sequence of courtship. Usually, a woman was required to be modest and shy to make sure that her suitor was sincere, but breaking this rule serves to speed along the plot. The lovers are able to skip courting and move on to plain talk about their relationship...agreeing to be married after knowing each other for only one night. In the final suicide scene, there is a contradiction in the message...in the Catholic religion, suicides were often thought to be condemned to hell, whereas people who die to be with their loves under the 'Religion of Love' are joined with their loves in paradise. Romeo and Juliet's love seems to be expressing the 'Religion of Love' view rather than the Catholic view. Another point is that although their love is passionate, it is only consummated in marriage, which keeps them from losing the audience's sympathy."

"true. the play arguably equates love and sex with death. throughout the story, both romeo and juliet, along with the other characters, fantasizes about it as a dark being, often equating it with a lover. capulet, for example, when he first discovers juliet's faked death, describes it as having deflowered his daughter. juliet later erotically compares romeo and death. right before her suicide, she grabs romeo's dagger, saying “o happy dagger! this is thy sheath. there rust, and let me die.”."

"WHERE ARE YOU TWO GOING WITH THIS?"

"To be blunt sir...It’s not the story of a young couple rebelling against their parents. It’s the story of Juliet falling victim to Romeo. It’s a tragedy because of what happens to Juliet, not because their relationship doesn’t work out. We’re supposed to hate Romeo. This idea was proposed by comedian Jay Black, a former English teacher who was explaining his theory to a student at Edinboro University after a show."

"romeo & juliet was written around 1595 though there’s some debate and first performed soon after. i mention the date here because it’s important to why we're supposed to hate romeo. there was rampant famine in england in the 1590s among the poor. most of the audience showing up to a performance of romeo & juliet was probably hungry. they pay what little money they have to see a play to forget their misery for a few hours. then out saunters romeo, a little rich boy, whining about love. besides love, what’s one of the first lines out of his mouth? he asks benvolio: “where shall we dine?” imagine a theater full of starving people hearing that delivered by some beautiful rich kid. he has so many options for where he’s going to get his next meal that he can’t even decide. they’d have thrown tomatoes if they weren’t so hungry."

"It’s semiotics. The same way a filmmaker now might show a villain being mean to an animal to signal to the audience that this is the bad guy, Shakespeare included this line to incite the feeling in the audience that they should hate this guy. Besides talking about food when we first meet him, Romeo is whining about love, but really he’s just mad that Rosaline won’t sleep with him. When he meets Juliet, he doesn’t fall instantly in love, he sees someone he thinks he can have sex with. He uses the fact that Juliet has fallen for him to manipulate her. Romeo is a dick."

"black tells this theory as one he came to on his own in studying the play, but admits it’s probably not a particularly unique take on the idea. in researching this, one can find no shortage of theories and alternate interpretations of the text. beyond black’s thoughts on romeo, one can develop some of their own about paris to further support the idea that romeo is a villain."

"Paris tends to be seen as the guy that Juliet is having forced upon her by her parents, but his conversation with Lord Capulet makes it clear that Capulet doesn’t want them to be married for at least two years, and that although he likes Paris, the young man still needs to win Juliet over. Capulet tells Paris in Act I Scene II: “But woo her, gentle Paris, get her heart, My will to her consent is but a part; An she agree, within her scope of choice Lies my consent and fair according voice.”. Paris isn’t being forced on anybody. He loves Juliet. She is Paris’ dying thought at the end of the play after Romeo kills him: “O, I am slain! If thou be merciful, Open the tomb, lay me with Juliet.”."

"another theory on the subject is about juliet’s virginity. it proposes that juliet’s reluctance to marry paris isn’t because she’s so in love with romeo, it’s that she can’t marry him because he’ll know she’s no longer a virgin. there isn’t much in the text to support this directly, but most of juliet’s reluctance is about the idea of marriage, and not about paris specifically. whether juliet realizes the consequence of letting romeo up on that balcony or not, it’s still true."

"So Romeo, in an attempt to get laid, ruins Juliet’s prospects of marrying Paris, kills her cousin, gets banished, and drives a 13-year-old girl to suicide. Romeo’s the asshole here. Juliet kills herself because her love, Romeo, who's been manipulating her this whole time, is dead. Romeo offs himself because he’s screwed and got no other choice that he wants to take. He’s already been banished, killed Tybalt, and now Paris. What do you think happens next if he walks out of that tomb? The dude is royally fucked. When he finds Juliet “dead”, that’s the last straw. His whole world’s been thrown into upheaval over this girl, and now she’s dead. Romeo, already a desperate man in a desperate situation, doesn’t see any other option than death. Such a bitch move."

"exactly! so why then, do we see it as story about two crazy kids in love? probably because that’s what people want to see. we’d rather see two kids kill themselves because they’re so in love and the world just doesn’t understand than watch a play where a sex-crazed maniac drives a 13-year-old girl to kill herself."

Fell is shocked but impressed.

"VERY GOOD. YOU TWO ACTUALLY THOUGHT ABOUT THIS RATHER THAN FOLLOW THE SOURCE MATERIAL BLINDLY OR GO WITH THE VEIW OF THE MASSES. THAT WILL MAKE THIS NEXT PART ALL THE MORE INTERESTING."

We are confused.

"I WANT THE TWO OF YOU TO COME DOWN HERE AND DO A LITTLE ROLE-PLAY."

"what?"

"SANS, YOU'LL BE ROMEO. AND LYNSIE, YOU'RE JULIET."

This has me nervous.

"Um...With all due respect sir...I don't feel that to be necessary."

He and the rest of the class are taken back by this. Normally I follow a teacher's instructions without question. So me trying to get out of obeying is like a lightning strike on a cloudless day, very odd.

"VERY CUTE, YOU THINK I'M GIVING YOU A CHOICE. *chuckles* GET DOWN HERE."

"B-but sir..."

"NOW!"

Fuck, shit, damn it, crap! I have performance anxiety. I turn into to a mess when in front of others. But damn it all to hell, Fell's not giving me a choice. Well...I could run away, but that'll only mess my grades up. So I reluctantly follow Edgy down to stand with Fell and already I can feel the butterflies in my gut going crazy.

"NOW THEN. THE TWO OF YOU ARE GOING TO PLAY OUT A SCENE FROM THE PLAY. SCENE II, CAPULET'S ORCHARD. THE VERY WELL KNOWN BALCONY SCENE. I'M SURE YOU BOTH KNOW THE LINES."

"yes professor."

"Yes sir."

I feel ill. I can't get my eyes off the floor and I'm fiddling with my hands nervously. A stark contrast to my normal demeanor. And it is very noticeable.

"ALRIGHT. ENTER ROMEO. HE JESTS AT SCARS THAT NEVER FELT A WOUND. JULIET APPEARS ABOVE AT A WINDOW. AND...BEGIN."

He claps his hands and a chill shoots up my spine as Edgy clears his throat.

"*ahem* but, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? it is the east, and juliet is the sun. arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, who is already sick and pale with grief, that thou her maid art far more fair than she: be not her maid, since she is envious; her vestal livery is but sick and green and none but fools do wear it; cast it off. it is my lady, o, it is my love! o, that she knew she were! she speaks yet she says nothing: what of that? her eye discourses; i will answer it. i am too bold, 'tis not to me she speaks: two of the fairest stars in all the heaven, having some business, do entreat her eyes to twinkle in their spheres till they return. what if her eyes were there, they in her head? the brightness of her cheek would shame those stars, as daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven would through the airy region stream so bright that birds would sing and think it were not night. see, how she leans her cheek upon her hand! o, that i were a glove upon that hand, that i might touch that cheek!"

Shit! My turn.

"Ay me!"

That came out a bit louder than I wanted and people are noticing.

"she speaks: o, speak again, bright angel! for thou art as glorious to this night, being o'er my head as is a winged messenger of heaven unto the white-upturned wondering eyes of mortals that fall back to gaze on him when he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds and sails upon the bosom of the air."

"O Romeo, Romeo! W-wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy f-father and refuse thy name; O-or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn m-my love, And I'll no longer be a C-capulet."

Oh dear god, no, a stutter?! The looks I'm getting. I want to go curl into a corner and die.

"uh...shall i hear more, or shall i speak at this?"

That is both a line and a real question, but Fell lets it continue.

"'T-tis but thy name that is my enemy; Thou art t-thyself, though not a Montague. What's M-montague? I-it is nor hand, nor foot, Nor arm, nor face, nor any other p-part Belonging to a man. O, be some other name! What's in a name? T-that which we call a rose By any other name w-would smell as sweet; So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd, R-retain that dear perfection which he owes W-without that title. Romeo, doff thy name, And for t-that name which is no part of t-thee Take all myself."

"i take thee at thy word: call me but love, and i'll be new baptized; henceforth i never will be romeo."

"W-what man art thou that thus b-bescreen'd in night So s-stumblest on my counsel?"

"That's not the only thing stumbling!"

Laughter waves through the rows of students and I can feel the tears threaten to pour.

"SILENCE!"

Fell's booming voice is like thunder.

"CLASS IS DISMISSED."

No one seems to mind this.

"I WANT A FIVE PAGED REPORT ON ROMEO & JULIET BY MONDAY, OR YOU CAN KISS YOUR GRADE POINT AVERAGE THIS SEMESTER GOODBYE."

To that the people groan.

"LYNSIE."

Well I'm dead now.

"Yes sir?"

"STAY. I WANT TO TALK TO YOU."

I reluctantly remain behind, only Edgy giving me any show of support by mouthing the words 'good luck and be safe' as everyone leaves the room and Fell shuts the door, locking it too.

"DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHY I WANTED YOU TO STAY?"

I hang my head low.

"Because I disgraced the work of Shakespeare with such a shitty reciting."

"NOT QUITE..."

He approaches me, his demeanor never faltering.

"YOU'VE BEEN TAKING MY CLASS FOR TWO YEARS NOW. AND NOT ONCE HAVE I EVER SEEN YOU FALTER. WHAT I WANT TO KNOW IS...WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU AND WHY?"

I rub my arm sheepishly.

"I...I can't function in front of multiple people."

He cocks his head in puzzlement.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY THAT? YOU'VE NEVER HAD A ISSUE BEFORE."

"That's because I'm not in a spotlight like that was. If I know others are watching me, expecting of me...I get so messed up."

"BUT YOU HAVE NO PROBLEM DOING SO WITH SANS. HELL, IT'S KIND OF, DARE I SAY...CUTE...WHEN YOU TWO GO OVER STORIES TOGETHER. IF ANYTHING WOULDN'T HIM BEING HERE HELP YOU?"

"*sigh* Honestly, him there was the only reason I was able to speak or recall my lines. Otherwise I would've ran out of the room. But still...It took ages to become comfortable to do that with Edgy. Don't get me wrong, he was sweet in helping me through my shyness. But he is only one person, and this was a whole classroom. I can't deal with so many at once, I just can't."

"HMMM...SO THAT'S THE PROBLEM."

He looks off in thought for a moment before grabbing my chin so that I'm looking at him and not the floor.

"LISTEN WELL...I'M GOING TO HELP YOU. BUT YOU NEED TO OBEY EVERY SINGLE WORD I TELL YOU. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?"

I gulp a nervous lump in my throat and nod.

"SPEAK CONFIRMATION. I WANT TO HEAR YOU CONSENT."

That has me look at him funny. I know sometimes Fell can word things in a awkward form, but that made me feel all types of weird.

"O-okay."

"GOOD. OH! AND THIS NEVER LEAVES THIS ROOM OR YOU'RE SUSPENDED FROM CLASS FOR THE REST OF THE YEAR."

Holy shit, this must be serious.

"Yes sir. These lips are sealed. *zips mouth*"

"HEH...FUNNY. NOW...I WANT YOU TO GO TO WHERE YOU WERE STANDING WITH SANS EARLIER."

"Alright."

I do as told.

"NOW FACE THE ROWS AND IMAGIN EVERYONE HAS RETURNED AS YOU'RE ABOUT TO READ YOUR REPORT."

I don't have to try all that much, my imagination works wonders, and even though I know it's all in my head, the signs of a panic attack start kicking in. A sense of terror chills me. My heart begins racing. A numbness in the hands and fingers. My chest pains as breathing becomes difficult. My body feels weak and my head spins. Feeling a loss of control over myself and I sway ready to topple over. Luckily Fell gets to me before I can fall and holds me to his chest.

"EASY NOW...IT'S OKAY. IT'S JUST US HERE. SLOW YOUR BREATHING AND RELAX."

To further help sooth me, he rubs my back and rests his head on my own, which in my current state has me being lulled into his care.

"THERE...FEELING ANY BETTER?"

I nod and give him a hug in thanks, which messes with him and he shoves me away. Both of us blushing.

"S-sorry."

"IT'S FINE."

He straightens himself up.

"NOW, TRY DOING THIS AGAIN. BUT THIS TIME, I WANT YOU TO FACE MY DESK."

"But sir..."

"IT'S FINE. I BELIEVE IN YOU."

"Okay..."

I shiver and face his desk. I can still feel eyes on me even though I know it's just us. I open my mouth to speak, but I can't make any words come out. Fell notices and rolls his eyes. This was more of a challenge than he first thought.

"*sigh* BY A NAME I KNOW NOT HOW TO TELL THEE WHO I AM: MY NAME, DEAR SAINT, IS HATEFUL TO MYSELF, BECAUSE IT IS AN ENEMY TO THEE; HAD I IT WRITTEN, I WOULD TEAR THE WORD."

He's...He's leading me into my next line?

"M-my ears have not yet drunk a hundred words O-of that tongue's utterance, yet I know the sound: Art thou not Romeo and a Montague?"

He slams his hand on the desk and makes me jump.

"NEITHER, FAIR SAINT, IF EITHER THEE DISLIKE."

"H-how camest thou..."

He slams his hand again and I claw the desk to keep from panicking.

"How camest thou hither, tell me, and wherefore? The orchard walls are high and hard to climb, And the place death, considering who thou art, If any of my kinsmen find thee here."

My heart is pounding, my nerves on alert, and yet he smirks. He found a way to keep me focused on my performance, by distracting me.

"WITH LOVE'S LIGHT WINGS DID I O'ER-PERCH THESE WALLS; FOR STONY LIMITS CANNOT HOLD LOVE OUT, AND WHAT LOVE CAN DO THAT DARES LOVE ATTEMPT; THEREFORE THY KINSMEN ARE NO LET TO ME."

"If they d-do..."

I flinch when I feel his hand on my back.

"If they do see thee, they will murder thee."

Fell nudges me to move and gets me behind his desk. There he stands behind me and holds my chin up so that I look straight at the empty seats.

"ALACK, THERE LIES MORE PERIL IN THINE EYE THAN TWENTY OF THEIR SWORDS: LOOK THOU BUT SWEET, AND I AM PROOF AGAINST THEIR ENMITY."

"Sir, this doesn't feel right anymore."

"DON'T BREAK CHARACTER, JULIET. YOU'RE DOING SO WELL."

"Okay...*sigh* I would not for the world they saw thee here."

"GOOD GIRL...I HAVE NIGHT'S CLOAK TO HIDE ME FROM THEIR SIGHT; AND BUT THOU LOVE ME, LET THEM FIND ME HERE: MY LIFE WERE BETTER ENDED BY THEIR HATE, THAN DEATH PROROGUED, WANTING OF THY LOVE."

Okay Lynsie, you can do this. Just focus and recite the lines. Then he'll stop and you can go to your place to take a nice long rest.

"By whose direction found'st thou out this place?"

He smiles darkly and removes his hands. I feel relief until his hands find themselves on my sides.

"Uh...Sir...?"

"BY LOVE, WHO FIRST DID PROMPT ME TO INQUIRE; HE LENT ME COUNSEL AND I LENT HIM EYES. I AM NO PILOT; YET, WERT THOU AS FAR AS THAT VAST SHORE WASH'D WITH THE FARTHEST SEA, I WOULD ADVENTURE FOR SUCH MERCHANDISE."

His hands slowly rub small circles into me and I squirm.

"What are you doing?"

"IT'S WORKING, YES? YOUR ANXIETY ISN'T STOPPING YOU. NOW KEEP GOING."

"Sir...Are you enjoying this?"

"WILL YOU KEEP GOING IF I ANSWER?"

"I guess."

"YES. I AM. NOW KEEP GOING."

That makes me blush more as I clear my throat.

"Thou know'st the mask of night is on my face, Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek For that which thou hast heard me speak to-night Fain would I dwell on form, fain, fain deny What I have spoke: but farewell compliment! Dost thou love me? I know thou wilt say 'Ay,' And I will take thy word: yet if thou swear'st, Thou mayst prove false; at lovers' perjuries Then say, Jove laughs. O gentle Romeo, If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully: Or if thou think'st I am too quickly won, I'll frown and be perverse an say thee nay, So thou wilt woo; but else, not for the world. In truth, fair Montague, I am too fond, And therefore thou mayst think my 'havior light: But trust me, gentleman, I'll prove more true Than those that have more cunning to be strange. I should have been more strange, I must confess, But that thou overheard'st, ere I was ware, My true love's passion: therefore pardon me, And not impute this yielding to light love, Which the dark night hath so discovered."

"LADY, BY YONDER BLESSED MOON I SWEAR THAT TIPS WITH SILVER ALL THESE FRUIT-TREE TOPS..."

"O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon, That monthly changes in her circled orb, Lest that thy love prove likewise variable."

"WHAT SHALL I SWEAR BY?"

His hands start to roam my body. Exploring my curves up to my chest before cupping my breasts and eliciting a sharp gasp from me.

"Sir, this doesn't seem appropriate anymore."

"LYNSIE...WHAT DID I SAY WHEN THIS ALL STARTED?"

"This doesn't leave the room?"

"YES. BUT I MEANT THE THING I SAID BEFORE THAT."

"Um..."

"I SAID...*leans into my ear* YOU NEED TO OBEY EVERY SINGLE WORD I TELL YOU. AND YOU SAID...?"

"O-okay. But sir..."

"NO BUTS. NOW BE A GOOD GIRL AND KEEP UTTERING THOSE PERFECT LINES FROM YOUR LIPS."

"May I ask one question?"

"IF YOU MUST."

"...Are you getting turned on by all this?"

"IF YOU HAVE TO ASK, THEN YOU'RE MORE NAÏVE THAN I THOUGHT."

"I'm not naïve."

"OH REALLY? THEN BY THAT LOGIC YOU NOT ONLY KNOW I'M ENJOYING THIS, BUT SO ARE YOU FOR YOU'RE LETTING ME CONTINUE. DO YOU DENY THIS CLAIM, LYNSIE?"

"I...uh...I plead the fifth on the grounds I don't wish to to give self-incriminating information."

"*chuckles* YEAH...THAT'S WHAT I THOUGHT. BUT FEAR NOT, MY LITTLE SINNER. AS WE AGREED UPON EARLIER, THIS DOESN'T LEAVE THIS ROOM."

He presses his body against me, a large bulge resting on my ass and his hands softly grope my breasts.

"NOW...CONTINE TO SPEAK, JULIET."

A small shudder leaves me.

"Y-yes...Romeo."

He smiles and presses harder to me as to make my head spin while I continue.

"Do not swear at all; Or, if thou wilt, swear by thy gracious self, Which is the god of my idolatry, And I'll believe thee."

"IF MY HEART'S DEAR LOVE..."

"Well, do not swear: although I joy in thee, I have no joy of this contract to-night: It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden; Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be Ere one can say 'It lightens.' Sweet, good night! This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath, May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet. Good night, good night! as sweet repose and rest Come to thy heart as that within my breast!"

I yelp at the end as he gives me a squeeze, earning me a devilish snicker and yet another squeeze.

"O, WILT THOU LEAVE ME SO UNSATISFIED?"

He begins to rock against me, rubbing that bulge harder and harder to me. I'm slowly losing it and I lean my head back onto his shoulder.

"What satisfaction canst thou have to-night?"

He gives my neck some light nips and I swoon, purring into his neck.

"THE EXCHANGE OF THY LOVE'S FAITHFUL VOW FOR MINE."

At this point love means lust and we both are feeling it. As much as I was fighting it at the start, now I'm enjoying his advances, even to the point that I'm grinding back into his hypnotically moving hips much to his ego's delight.

"I gave thee mine before thou didst request it: And yet I would it were to give again."

His hands wander back down, feeling my thighs and daring to go under my skirt. I don't really care for the uniforms. Girls have to wear skirts, I hate it because of perverts taking up-skirt pics. But in this case the damn thing makes it easier for this kind of fun.

"WOULDST THOU WITHDRAW IT? FOR WHAT PURPOSE, LOVE?"

I reach down to hold his hands, guiding them under my skirt and letting his bony digits feel along my flesh, making him shudder through his teeth.

"But to be frank, and give it thee again. And yet I wish but for the thing I have: My bounty is as boundless as the sea, My love as deep; the more I give to thee, The more I have, for both are infinite."

"*groans* YOU'RE SUCH A TEASE."

"And you're a kinky pervy teacher. What's you're point?"

"MY POINT?"

He humps me harshly.

"MY POINT IS GOING TO BE WRECKING YOU AS SOON AS YOU DROP THOSE PANTIES."

"Me drop them? That doesn't sound like something a tease would do. If anything, a tease would do this..."

I lean on him more, pressing my ass to his hard as hell bulge and slowly rubbing on it teasingly. This has him swoon, moaning in growing need before becoming aggressive and bends me over his desk.

"WHAT A BAD GIRL YOU ARE. TEASING ME LIKE THAT. SUCH ACTIONS COME WITH RATHER HARSH CONSEQUENCES. DOESN'T THAT FRIGHTEN YOU IN THE SLIGHTEST?"

"Honestly sir...You are one of the scariest teachers here. When you have a bad day, even Edgy and I tremble."

"THEN WHAT MAKES YOU THINK YOU CAN BE SO BOLD WITH ME?"

"Heh...Maybe you're not the only one that's enjoying this. Maybe the danger excites me."

"OH IS THAT SO? HEH HEH...WELL THEN...I SHALL NOT DISAPPOINT YOU."

I flinch feeling his hand on my ass, kneading it tenderly before suddenly yanking my panties and ripping them right off me with a surprised yelp.

"H-hey!"

"YOU DON'T NEED THEM."

He lifts me up more, making sure I'm set properly across his desk and I hear him undo his pants, letting his long blood red erection free.

"MMMMMM...LOOK AT YOU. SO HELPLESS. JUST A RIPE LITTLE FLOWER READY FOR THE PLUCKING. JUST LIKE JULIET."

"Do you aim to deflower me, Romeo?"

"THAT, AND SO MUCH MORE."

He lifts my skirt up then slides his member between my legs to my folds and glides it slowly on my sex. Starting a test rhythm and building up heat for us both, a hot need for more.

"Mmmm...A bit ironic in a cute way, don't you think?"

"HUH? WHAT DO YOU MEAN?"

"You're the 'little' brother of three, and yet you are anything but."

"HEH...FLATTERY WILL GET YOU NOWHERE."

"Then why are you smiling?"

"IT'S A PITY SMILE."

"If you say so sir. But denial doesn't suit you."

"YOU CHEEKY LITTLE SHIT..."

He smacks my ass and I yelp a moan much to his interest.

"OH? WELL WHO'S THE KINKY ONE NOW?"

"Still you sir."

He smacks me again and again I moan. He does this as his hips pick up speed. Excitement getting to him and pleasure building. Soon enough he groans and bucks particularly hard, shoving himself hilt deep inside me, making me scream in pain.

"OOOOOH...FFFUCK YOU'RE TIGHT. AND SO LUSHISHLY WARM AND WET~."

"Fuck you!"

He eyes me funny as I claw at his desk harshly.

"THE HELL...? WHAT'S YOUR PROBLEM?"

"I wasn't joking with that deflowering line. *wincing* That fucking hurts!"

If skeletons could pale, he'd be doing it. He looks down at the point where we connect and pulls back slightly. I whimper as I bite my lip and feel him touch around my sex's entrance. He frowns when he looks at his red stained fingers and regret comes to his mind.

"I...I'M SORRY."

I look up at him in shock. I have never heard him apologize or speak in such a somber tone.

"S-sir...?"

He attempts to slowly pull out and I grab his arm.

"Don't move."

"W-WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"

"Don't you dare move. Do not flee from that which you have started. For to do so now would be a coward's act. And last I checked, you are no coward. Or am I mistaken sir Fell?"

He flinches. I dare his resolve with eyes set in a glare and swelling with tears.

"LYNSIE..."

"The damage has been done. There is no going back. So do not quake like some pitiful schmuck and see this through."

"BUT...YOU'RE BLEEDING..."

"Do not run away Papyrus!"

His name...Hearing his name used in such a way snaps him out of his daze and reverts his mind into a baser understanding.

"AGAIN."

"Huh?"

"SAY MY NAME AGAIN."

"Uh...Papyrus?"

"*shudders* OKAY...NO MORE MESSING AROUND. I'M GOING TO MOVE NOW. ARE YOU READY?"

"I think so. Just...Take it slow, okay?"

"I MAKE NO PROMISES. BUT...I WILL TRY."

I merely nod, letting his arm go and he waits a moment before his hips start moving, though he pauses when I gasp sharply.

"SHH...SH-SHHH IT'S OKAY...E-EASSYY SHHHH...EAASSYY LYNSIE...UUNHN...AH...OOOH ARE YOU OKAY?"

"*bites lip* Why are you so big?"

His ego soars.

"HEHEH...ALL THE BETTER TO PLEASE YOU WITH, MY DEAR. HHHN...GEEZ...UHN YOU FELT TIGHT BEFORE BUT N-NOW...UHHN...JUST...TRY TO RELAX...RELAX FOR ME."

"I'm...I'm trying..."

Moving slow to start, the pain in my body eventually fades off into the swell of pleasant feelings.

"Mmmmm...Ooooh Papyrus..."

"MHN...O-OH...A-AH...HHNNNMM...U-UHN...OHH...OH SHIT...OH SHIT..."

He buries his face against the base of my neck, catching my shoulder with his teeth as he groans and slowly grinds within me. It's like a slow-paced pendulum. Neither of us find it necessary to rush. Every small thrust, every tiny jab he makes within me is met with a powerful response deep in my abdomen. Every inch of my skin feels as if it's lit up like fireworks, the blood running through my veins sizzle across my bones in an intense explosion, flaring within me like a blazing inferno. His hands grab a tight hold of my thighs, and I stifle the urge to scream as the head of his erection suddenly hits a bundle of nerves deep within me.

"OOHH THERE...THERE WE ARE...HHNMM FEELING BETTER?"

"So good...You feel so good..."

He chuckles wickedly.

"HEH HEH, VERY GOOD...I...I HOPE YOU'RE READY LYNSIE...THIS MIGHT...FEEL PRETTY INTENSE. HHMN...I'M GOING TO ADD FORCE."

"Please do."

He wasn't joking either. As intense as this was already, he pushes into me faster and harder. His thrusts gradually speeding up faster and faster, going deeper inside me to hit places I had no clue even existed. With each plunge he takes, the more unraveled I get, my face twisting in mind altering euphoria and he can't get enough of it.

"A-AAHHNN...OOOH FUCK YES...YES...OHNN...MMMMM...AHHHN...OOOH H-HELL...AHHHN SOO...HHAHH O-OOH....HHNAHNN...SO AMAZING...I-INSIDE...HHHHAAHHNN...AHHH MNNFF...FUCK...IT'S SO GOOD..."

"Ooh yes...yes...Ohnn...Papyrus...mnhnn...Aaaahn...don't stop...Don't stop Papyrus..."

Releasing my hips from his grasp, he loops his right arm around my waist while his left hand finds my own and laces his bony phalanges in my fingers in a gentle grip. The rhythmic thrusting of his hips, driving that hardened magic made member of his to my depths, eliciting his name to ring out of me over and over in the most heated of ways.

"THAT'S IT MY JULIET...MY SWEET LITTLE FLOWER...*he bites at my neck* HHNMM I WANT YOU TO CUM FOR ME...OOOOOOH...I WANT TO HEAR YOU SCREAM...CALL MY NAME OUT AS YOU LET GO OF EVERYTHING...MMMMMM...I WANT TO BE ALL YOU THINK ABOUT."

"Oohh...o-oh ahh...Papyrus...Hahnnhhnann...Oooooh...yeahhh...Papyrus..."

"YEAH...JUST LIKE THAT...K-KEEP GOING..."

"O-oh P-pa...hnnm...Paaahpyrus...I-I'm...Hhahh...oohnn...I think I-I'm getting c-cl...oh I'm...hghnnn I'm c-cloosee...u-uahhn...hnnmm..."

"R-REALLY? U-UUNHN...HNMM...OH-AH-HGHN...HUK...AUH...I'M...GETTING THAT SAME FEELING...HOO WHERE...WHERE I'M...A BIT...DON'T KNOW HOW...H-HOW LONG I-I'LL LAST...HNMM HHHNN..."

"*shrieks* There! Ah! Papyrus! Please! There! There! Again! There Please!"

"*chuckles* O-OH? WAS THAT THE SPOT? YEAH? YOU WANT M-ME TO SLAM INTO YOU RIGHT THERE? HMMM? MAYBE...AH-HAHHN...MAYBE IF I HIT THAT SPOT JUST RIGHT..."

He centers his movements to hit into it, the hand around my waist dips down to rub his fingers against my clit, that pressure in my abdomen increases fiercely. The series of moans and cries coming from me, they're ushering him over his own edge.

"HNMM...LYNSIE...OHHN...UHGN...GHHN...O-OOHH GONNA...UNHN...LYNSIE! HHNNM OH I'M GONNA...M-MAKE YOU MINE...!"

He claims my lips in a heatedly deep kiss as he pounds as hard as he can into me and I feel everything getting so tight it's painful. Yet after so much building pressure I let out a high scream as my vision goes blank and I peak in orgasm of sweet release. Faintly he feels a warm gush from me coating his length, setting off the sparks inside him and letting him lose himself completely.

"A-AH...ALMOST...A-ALMOST THERE...THHEEREE...HHNNGN...A-AUH AH LYNSIE...T-THERE...THERE IT IS! A-AHHN C-CUUMMING...CUMMMINNGG! HHNNN...UAHHH...AHHH....OOOOOH...HNMMM...MMMMMM..."

He groans out as he follows after me, spilling his essence well into my core in deliciously hot spurts and giving me this wonderful full feeling. Our left hands still laced together and tightening till it almost feels like we'll almost break the others hand. I'm shaking underneath him as he pants hard in my ear, lightly nuzzling into my hair as his hips slowly settle themselves down till they've stopped and he keeps our connection while holding me close.

"*purrs* THANK YOU."

"For what sir?"

"FOR ALLOWING THIS TO HAVE HAPPENED. IT WASN'T MY INTENTION IN THE BEGINNING...BUT I'LL ADMIT...I WOULDN'T CHANGE THIS OUTCOME."

"*snickers* Yeah. Why change a moment where you got laid?"

"OKAY LITTLE MISS SMART ASS. KEEP THIS SHIT UP AND I WON'T BE SO NICE TO YOU."

"Oh?"

"DO YOU RECALL THAT ASSIGNMENT I ISSUED BEFORE ALL THIS?"

"Yeah."

"YOU DON'T HAVE TO DO IT."

I'm stunned.

"For real? No joke?"

"I BELIEVE YOU DEMONSTRATED A FINE UNDERSTANDING OF THE PLAY. EVEN GOING SO FAR AS TO RECITE WHILE I WAS...DISTRACTING YOU."

"Is that what we're calling foreplay now?"

"VERY FUNNY. BY THE WAY, HOW IS YOUR ANXIETY?"

I blink in realization.

"It...I honestly forgot all about it.

"YOU'RE WLECOMED."

"Thanks sir. *pause* I wonder how much time has passed."

"PROBABLY ENOUGH TO MAKE US BOTH LOOK SUSPICIOUS. DO YOU NEED HELP GETTING HOME?"

"That depends...Are your brothers joining us?"

"NOT LIKELY. GASTER WOULD HAVE ALREADY TAKEN SANS HOME BY NOW."

"Good. Not sure I could handle a drive with Edgy or Fall after this."

"AGREED."

"So...Wanna stay like this for while? I mean, I really can't feel my legs right now, so walking would suck."

"THAT'S FINE. I'M RATHER COMFORTABLE LIKE THIS. *nuzzles* YOU MAKE A GREAT BODY PILLOW."

I smile then bring our joined hands over to my lips and kiss his hand.

"Happy to be of service sir."

We continue to stay there for some time. Eventually, we leave the privacy of his classroom and go home, returning to our normal lives. We never speak of that day again, but the effects stay with us, and at random when the mood is right, we share passions once more upon his very sturdy desk. Whether we have feelings for one another is still uncertain. But that's fine with us for now. For never was a story tied in such a goofy bow...Than this of me, Juliet, and my skeletal Romeo.

#undertale #underfell #underswap #fellswap #dreemurr academy #underversity #sans #papyrus #gaster #buttercupsticksnlicks

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imaginaireradical · 8 years ago

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Why Capitalism Creates Pointless Jobs

It’s as if someone were out there making up pointless jobs just for the sake of keeping us all working.

By David Graeber

In the year 1930, John Maynard Keynes predicted that technology would have advanced sufficiently by century’s end that countries like Great Britain or the United States would achieve a 15-hour work week. There’s every reason to believe he was right. In technological terms, we are quite capable of this. And yet it didn’t happen. Instead, technology has been marshaled, if anything, to figure out ways to make us all work more. In order to achieve this, jobs have had to be created that are, effectively, pointless. Huge swathes of people, in Europe and North America in particular, spend their entire working lives performing tasks they secretly believe do not really need to be performed. The moral and spiritual damage that comes from this situation is profound. It is a scar across our collective soul. Yet virtually no one talks about it.

Why did Keynes’ promised utopia – still being eagerly awaited in the ‘60s – never materialise? The standard line today is that he didn’t figure in the massive increase in consumerism. Given the choice between less hours and more toys and pleasures, we’ve collectively chosen the latter. This presents a nice morality tale, but even a moment’s reflection shows it can’t really be true. Yes, we have witnessed the creation of an endless variety of new jobs and industries since the ‘20s, but very few have anything to do with the production and distribution of sushi, iPhones, or fancy sneakers.

So what are these new jobs, precisely? A recent report comparing employment in the US between 1910 and 2000 gives us a clear picture (and I note, one pretty much exactly echoed in the UK). Over the course of the last century, the number of workers employed as domestic servants, in industry, and in the farm sector has collapsed dramatically. At the same time, “professional, managerial, clerical, sales, and service workers” tripled, growing “from one-quarter to three-quarters of total employment.” In other words, productive jobs have, just as predicted, been largely automated away (even if you count industrial workers globally, including the toiling masses in India and China, such workers are still not nearly so large a percentage of the world population as they used to be).

But rather than allowing a massive reduction of working hours to free the world’s population to pursue their own projects, pleasures, visions, and ideas, we have seen the ballooning not even so much of the “service” sector as of the administrative sector, up to and including the creation of whole new industries like financial services or telemarketing, or the unprecedented expansion of sectors like corporate law, academic and health administration, human resources, and public relations. And these numbers do not even reflect on all those people whose job is to provide administrative, technical, or security support for these industries, or for that matter the whole host of ancillary industries (dog-washers, all-night pizza deliverymen) that only exist because everyone else is spending so much of their time working in all the other ones.

These are what I propose to call “bullshit jobs.”

It’s as if someone were out there making up pointless jobs just for the sake of keeping us all working. And here, precisely, lies the mystery. In capitalism, this is exactly what is not supposed to happen. Sure, in the old inefficient socialist states like the Soviet Union, where employment was considered both a right and a sacred duty, the system made up as many jobs as they had to (this is why in Soviet department stores it took three clerks to sell a piece of meat). But, of course, this is the very sort of problem market competition is supposed to fix. According to economic theory, at least, the last thing a profit-seeking firm is going to do is shell out money to workers they don’t really need to employ. Still, somehow, it happens.

While corporations may engage in ruthless downsizing, the layoffs and speed-ups invariably fall on that class of people who are actually making, moving, fixing and maintaining things; through some strange alchemy no one can quite explain, the number of salaried paper-pushers ultimately seems to expand, and more and more employees find themselves, not unlike Soviet workers actually, working 40 or even 50 hour weeks on paper, but effectively working 15 hours just as Keynes predicted, since the rest of their time is spent organising or attending motivational seminars, updating their facebook profiles or downloading TV box-sets.

The answer clearly isn’t economic: it’s moral and political. The ruling class has figured out that a happy and productive population with free time on their hands is a mortal danger (think of what started to happen when this even began to be approximated in the ‘60s). And, on the other hand, the feeling that work is a moral value in itself, and that anyone not willing to submit themselves to some kind of intense work discipline for most of their waking hours deserves nothing, is extraordinarily convenient for them.

Once, when contemplating the apparently endless growth of administrative responsibilities in British academic departments, I came up with one possible vision of hell. Hell is a collection of individuals who are spending the bulk of their time working on a task they don’t like and are not especially good at. Say they were hired because they were excellent cabinet-makers, and then discover they are expected to spend a great deal of their time frying fish. Neither does the task really need to be done – at least, there’s only a very limited number of fish that need to be fried. Yet somehow, they all become so obsessed with resentment at the thought that some of their co-workers might be spending more time making cabinets, and not doing their fair share of the fish-frying responsibilities, that before long there’s endless piles of useless badly cooked fish piling up all over the workshop and it’s all that anyone really does.

I think this is actually a pretty accurate description of the moral dynamics of our own economy.

Now, I realise any such argument is going to run into immediate objections: “who are you to say what jobs are really ‘necessary’? What’s necessary anyway? You’re an anthropology professor, what’s the ‘need’ for that?” (And indeed a lot of tabloid readers would take the existence of my job as the very definition of wasteful social expenditure.) And on one level, this is obviously true. There can be no objective measure of social value.

I would not presume to tell someone who is convinced they are making a meaningful contribution to the world that, really, they are not. But what about those people who are themselves convinced their jobs are meaningless? Not long ago I got back in touch with a school friend who I hadn’t seen since I was 12. I was amazed to discover that in the interim, he had become first a poet, then the front man in an indie rock band. I’d heard some of his songs on the radio having no idea the singer was someone I actually knew. He was obviously brilliant, innovative, and his work had unquestionably brightened and improved the lives of people all over the world. Yet, after a couple of unsuccessful albums, he’d lost his contract, and plagued with debts and a newborn daughter, ended up, as he put it, “taking the default choice of so many directionless folk: law school.” Now he’s a corporate lawyer working in a prominent New York firm. He was the first to admit that his job was utterly meaningless, contributed nothing to the world, and, in his own estimation, should not really exist.

There’s a lot of questions one could ask here, starting with, what does it say about our society that it seems to generate an extremely limited demand for talented poet-musicians, but an apparently infinite demand for specialists in corporate law? (Answer: if 1% of the population controls most of the disposable wealth, what we call “the market” reflects what they think is useful or important, not anybody else.) But even more, it shows that most people in these jobs are ultimately aware of it. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever met a corporate lawyer who didn’t think their job was bullshit. The same goes for almost all the new industries outlined above. There is a whole class of salaried professionals that, should you meet them at parties and admit that you do something that might be considered interesting (an anthropologist, for example), will want to avoid even discussing their line of work entirely. Give them a few drinks, and they will launch into tirades about how pointless and stupid their job really is.

This is a profound psychological violence here. How can one even begin to speak of dignity in labour when one secretly feels one’s job should not exist? How can it not create a sense of deep rage and resentment. Yet it is the peculiar genius of our society that its rulers have figured out a way, as in the case of the fish-fryers, to ensure that rage is directed precisely against those who actually do get to do meaningful work. For instance: in our society, there seems a general rule that, the more obviously one’s work benefits other people, the less one is likely to be paid for it. Again, an objective measure is hard to find, but one easy way to get a sense is to ask: what would happen were this entire class of people to simply disappear? Say what you like about nurses, garbage collectors, or mechanics, it’s obvious that were they to vanish in a puff of smoke, the results would be immediate and catastrophic. A world without teachers or dock-workers would soon be in trouble, and even one without science fiction writers or ska musicians would clearly be a lesser place. It’s not entirely clear how humanity would suffer were all private equity CEOs, lobbyists, PR researchers, actuaries, telemarketers, bailiffs or legal consultants to similarly vanish. (Many suspect it might markedly improve.) Yet apart from a handful of well-touted exceptions (doctors), the rule holds surprisingly well.

Even more perverse, there seems to be a broad sense that this is the way things should be. This is one of the secret strengths of right-wing populism. You can see it when tabloids whip up resentment against tube workers for paralysing London during contract disputes: the very fact that tube workers can paralyse London shows that their work is actually necessary, but this seems to be precisely what annoys people. It’s even clearer in the US, where Republicans have had remarkable success mobilizing resentment against school teachers, or auto workers (and not, significantly, against the school administrators or auto industry managers who actually cause the problems) for their supposedly bloated wages and benefits. It’s as if they are being told “but you get to teach children! Or make cars! You get to have real jobs! And on top of that you have the nerve to also expect middle-class pensions and health care?”

If someone had designed a work regime perfectly suited to maintaining the power of finance capital, it’s hard to see how they could have done a better job. Real, productive workers are relentlessly squeezed and exploited. The remainder are divided between a terrorised stratum of the – universally reviled – unemployed and a larger stratum who are basically paid to do nothing, in positions designed to make them identify with the perspectives and sensibilities of the ruling class (managers, administrators, etc) – and particularly its financial avatars – but, at the same time, foster a simmering resentment against anyone whose work has clear and undeniable social value. Clearly, the system was never consciously designed. It emerged from almost a century of trial and error. But it is the only explanation for why, despite our technological capacities, we are not all working 3-4 hour days.

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