#Strikes me as a massive failure to understand how people are

[nerdomancer]

we as a society are never going to stop a backslide into straight up fascism if we can't get past the idea that it's possible to simply preemptively punish someone into being good (and then if they're not good, well, they deserve the punishment!)

[molotoph]

Magic functionally is a shorthand for the intricate systemic structures of white supremacy’s power by reducing them from a massive stranglehold of checks and balances to uphold each other ad infinitum, to a single power source that when removed removes all of their weapons and ability to enforce their own genocidal order, you obstinate shit brained brat.

Let’s check our notes on how well America’s beautiful and totally real democracy is working out for the reduction of genocide against indigenous people at home and abroad, how it’s working out protecting the lives and rights of black people, of trans people, of the poverty class. OH RIGHT IT’S FUCKING NOT, AND IT ULTIMATELY IS WORKING AS IT WAS DESIGNED TO WORK. But whatever, enjoy your corporate sponsored brat summer.

Telling anarchy to constantly look for a “better option” when what you mean is “an option where neither I nor the ruling class whose aesthetics make me endlessly sympathetic to and patient with them never have to lose anything uwu” is just a refusal to engage with a reality that at the end of the day you aren’t willing to allow in. I have my lattes and my duvet but I also have my fucking rage, I have my love for my human siblings the globe over, I have my comrades’ support to lean on when I’m weak. My praxis defines how I seek a better world. You don’t get to keep whiteness.

Nobody gets to keep whiteness. I don’t want it. It is a stain on me that separates me from others who rightfully must shut it out. But sure. I’m not worth arguing with. “Arguing to” you’re not giving me your dnc debate. An argument isn’t a matter of preaching. I don’t think you’re worth arguing with either, you leave the taste of Vaush and blue wave in my mouth. I’m showing your words to other people to show how y’all aren’t interested in any revolution because when we get down to it sweetheart, you don’t find anything wrong enough to leave. And other anarchists can do the work to try to hold baby’s little hand through understanding human rights, but I won’t bother. You being angy isn’t as valuable as time that could be spent with my comrades, with learning history, with trying to save lives by killing Nazis.

“Nazis didn’t use magic uwu” no shit. They used the irl equivalent. If we had magic here you wouldn’t fucking understand anyway. “Distribute the whiteness instead” You poor thing.

Tell me what the difference is in what it does to cities and human bodies between carpet bombing and a horizon darkened by 12 story suits of armor. The difference between a wand blast and a drone strike. Does a sparkle cupcake blast shield your delicate little eyes from the gore of a child shot twice in the head better from the same body they leave dead. Is a body mangled under hundreds of unicorn hooves functionally different than one run over by a tank.

You aesthetics diehards don’t have shit to say. “Buh buh the framing” makes you feel better about your culpability in an imperial core. Sure is a lot of flowery prose layered on top of “I don’t care enough to be willing to change anything.” We’re all trapped in it. I’m American, and I’m culpable for not doing enough to stop this. I’m afraid of getting butchered by fascists and my fear paralysis lets them kill unimpeded by me. I am willing to own my failures here. I am willing to let them hurt me and I am hoping my anger and my love will soon override my fear. What exactly are you holding onto that bends your body into a human shield of the fascist state. Your comfort isn’t as valuable to them as you think it is. Your comfort isn’t an impenetrable wall keeping the revolution out.

[the-story-forge]

⚠️Warning this story has extreme graphic adult content, viewer discretion is advised! ⚠

Chapter 8 - The Hero that was Enough

Lena saw chaos, and building on fire tumbling to the ground.

She covered her mouth crying, bones, blood and guts painted the roads and the walls. She looked around curious what could have done something like this.

One of the village children was crying clutching his leg. Lena ran for him but a figure landed from the sky right in front of her.

Clad in a golden suit and cape and a head of deep blonde he sneered and his eyes glowed, they ignited and two massive beams struck the child who exploded into bits.

Lena screamed and tried to run only to find a golden clad woman waiting for her. Lena didn't feel the blade's stab, she felt numb and weak at her knees. Only when the woman removed the blade did it really hurt.

Lena looked up at the sky one last time to see her hero flying in to save her.

Lena shut her eyes smiling.

"It's going to be alright, you know who you are now," Lena's vision grew blurry and faded into nothing.

------

Titan screamed crashing onto the ground, he ran for her and took her in his arms.

"This is what the royal heir has been reduced to?" A voice said behind him.

"Who are you?" Titan asked, setting down Lena's body and shutting her eyes.

"The Golden Order? Titanus we have come to take you home to your world. Away with these inferior rats!" The man smiled extending out his arms.

Titan walked towards him with an anger and punched him in the gut, the man stumbled back.

"This is how you treat your kind?" He growled.

"My kind?" Titan growled.

The man's face of confusion suddenly turned to one of understanding.

"You've lost your memory," said the man and smiled extending a hand.

"It's no matter we can fill you in on the ship while we make our way home.

Titan slapped his hand away.

"You don't seem to understand that you just killed an entire village of innocent people!" Titan gritted his teeth, his vision began to grow gold and his eyes hot.

"Innocent hardly, I, Hawk Goldleader have sworn to rid worlds of rats who call themselves civilization but masquerade as plague infecting beautiful planets."

Two other golden cloaked beings floated down beside him.

"We have a mission to return you to Home World and you are coming with us Titanus." The one called Hawk demanded.

"That is not my name!" Titan screamed.

Titan rose off of the ground and let his heat clad his eyes erupting into beams, that headed straight for Hawk. Hawk used his hands creating a "V" shape and spilt the beam around himself and the other two beings.

Titan's heat left his eyes and he pushed off into the sky heading towards them ready to punch Hawk into the ground.

"Omar, Safra handle him for me," Hawk commanded.

The two named Omar and Safra raised both their hands and stopped Titan dead in his tracks before he could strike. He fell onto the ground.

"Don't you want to find out who you are?" Hawk smiled.

Omar and Safra picked him up and held him for Hawk like a trophy.

Titan thought about being with Lena and laughing the moments they had spent together and the love she had felt for him.

"I know who I am," Titan sputtered.

A golden aura erupted from him burning and incinerating everything around him.

The three golden clad wearers covered there eyes, and grunted.

Titan slammed Omar and Safra into the ground and grabbed the one called Hawk lifting him into the air and flying him into the sky, sending him higher and higher by punch him in the face. Titan kicked at the air and sent a massive punch into Hawk that sent him hurtling farther across the sky, Titan kept punching and punching until Hawk and him fell into a snowy looking landscape.

Shortly after Omar and Safra followed and joining in on the fight.

"Your father was right Titanus, The World Killer is pathetic and a failure."

Titan stopped as he remembered a piece from his childhood. A figure hitting him, and scolding him for being nothing, the heat and torture of the sun.

His Father and his home.

Titan opened his eyes seeing the glaciers around him.

"Maybe in this past life I wasn't what you wanted me to be," Titan let the heat go to his eyes and beams began to form.

"But in this one I was something to someone," Titan smiled letting the beam erupt from his eyes hitting at the glaciers and causing them to fall towards them, the beams retracted, and Titan fell to the ground clutching he snow.

"That is enough for me," Titan smiled.

Hawk, Omar and Safra turned looking at the incoming avalanche of ice.

"No!" Hawk yelled and a gold blade extended from his wrist.

"Goodbye Lena," Titan whispered accepting his fate.

Hawk lunged in the air for Titan, the blade centimeters away from him just as the ice crushed on top of them burying them in a frozen prison.

Written by Phoenix Rose

Characters and Story Created by Phoenix Rose

A Story Forge Production

The Horse clacked across the stone and its rider was eager to get home already. Decades in the mountains made him so incredibly eager to see his father and little sister once again.

But as Thomas Moore rounded the corner to the out pass overlooking Midnight Village, he saw smoke on the horizon. He stopped the horse and got off; he looked down at the hollow spot where his town should be. A massive hollow crater sprawled for maybe several hundred miles in every direction.

[lunarscaled]

-> They aren't sure how they feel about it. It strikes something in their chest and leaves it ringing, something lodged so deep they aren't sure they could pull it out or decipher what part of them it comes from. They don't know why they need permission for it, but they do. Being a failure is certain doom at this point—the least they can do is be worth their existence and not let other people down, is what they felt. They were sent here with someone else's hopes of understanding Dragonclad better; they never thought it was an option to come home empty handed. Because there's no one waiting at home for them to return in one piece.

-> The heart is a massive, grotesque thing from the chest of the hollow, dripping blood and leaving a trail as he comes back to sit in front of them. It used to beat just minutes ago; Lyric doesn't know how to feel now that it doesn't. Life there and then gone. They wonder if all these things that want their soul will eat the fleshy parts of them too someday.

"That's not my fault. If I was any tougher they would have executed me even though I was a kid."

-> They try to keep their eyes on their book this time, not wanting to fall behind on their reading, but full of questions.

"It's not like I don't know how to work hard... I've just been in a room by myself for ten years and couldn't get out."

"It's not your job, dumbass. You're allowed t' disappoint people." I do it all the time.

He tears another leg off his catch, then digs into its body and finds its heart, and carries those back to where he'd been sitting to eat next. He'll probably continue to go back and forth for more. If he sits too long in front of Lyric, he gets antsy. He isn't good at conversation.

First bite into the heart, and he lets out a content hum. The leg sits across his lap to avoid sand sticking to it.

His expression seems to sour as he considers their words, though.

"...He shouldn't."

It's all he gives them.

"Of course he doesn't want you hurt. He cares about you for whatever reason. You could stand t' be tougher, though."

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

The Voyage So Far: Paramount War (Part Two)

east blue (1 | 2) || alabasta (1 | 2) || skypiea || water 7 || enies lobby || thriller bark || paramount war (1 | 2) || fishman island || punk hazard || dressrosa (1 | 2) || whole cake island || wano (1 | 2)

ace’s execution is, in a way, the exception that proves the rule when it comes to one piece’s themes of blood and family. ace is set up to die for the crimes of a father he never knew and never wanted, and he does die here, but in the end he dies for the family he did choose, in the form of luffy, rather than the one he didn’t. 

god do i wish we knew more about ms portgas d. rouge. with ace’s storyline pretty much wrapped it looks unlikely that we’re going to be learning more about her than what we got, which in my opinion is an absolute tragedy, because what little we do know about her is amazing and she’s an absolute badass. oda give us more female ds please.

whitebeard’s power is so cool. it might be one of the visually coolest devil fruits we’ve ever seen, in my opinion. he he causes earthquakes and tsunamis while far past his prime; he pulls the sky apart with his bare hands. this whole arc is world-shaking, and whitebeard’s power is perfectly appropriate for it. 

doflamingo’s speech on justice and rightness is one of the most well-remembered quotes from this whole saga, and rightly so. i’ve always found it fascinating, myself, because he’s right. he dead-on hits how the one piece world works- the world government and the marines rule the world not because of any inherent actual goodness or justice or right, but because they won a war a very long time ago. 

in a way, this reminds me of blackbeard’s line of “people’s dreams never die” from jaya. i like how oda isn’t afraid of letting his villains be right about the themes of the story, sometimes even having better awareness of them than the protagonists. 

man, if i had to pick a single favorite spread out of the whole manga, it might be luffy’s marineford entrance. it’s so epic, and so completely unexpected for everyone else there. absolutely nobody was expecting strawhat luffy to drop out of the sky with a posse including two former warlords. it just makes me grin!! so much!! 

it also gets followed up by a solid two pages of just people’s reactions, from smoker’s “what the HELL is he doing with CROCODILE” to moria’s immediate incoherent rage, and i just love that the world and cast of one piece is so well-established and built up that we know exactly how all of those people know luffy and why they react the way they do. 

going back to what i mentioned in the last post about marineford being luffy’s conflict of interest arc, i’d say it’s also the only time where he isn’t the future king first and foremost. in this arc, before anything else, he’s a little brother.

there are a lot of what-if moments in marineford. moments where you kind of have to ask “what if this specific thing hadn’t happened, had gone differently?” would things have turned out differently? squard’s betrayal is one of them. does this change the outcome? would whitebeard have been able to survive if not for this injury? there’s no way to know. marineford is a lot of little tragedies, and they just pile up and up.

marineford has just so many incredibly striking spreads. all of the momentous moments (and there’s a lot of them, in this arc) are done full justice. this is such an image heavy post just because marineford is such an incredibly visually strong arc. 

conqueror’s haki is so cool and i love the way it’s set up and built up throughout this saga, with luffy’s constant inadvertent uses of it, from duval’s bull to marigold and sandersonia to the wolves in impel down, all leading up to this moment. 

i’ve heard people complain about conqueror’s as kind of a deus ex machina, but i honestly love it, it’s very cool and honestly i think it just seems to fit luffy as a power. if there was ever gonna be a character who turned willpower into a weapon, it would be monkey d. luffy. 

i’m gonna take this chance to talk about garp, because this sequence of panels is heavily implied to be garp’s thoughts just before luffy punches him down, and it hurts. garp is a flawed person who makes some bad choices, and there’s no arguing that, but i think it’s very obvious he really, really cares about his grandsons, even if he never could understand them as people and that they never would have been happy as marines. and that’s just tragic, really. 

the moment ace gets freed and the brief span of time where he and luffy can fight together feel so triumphant, and i think it’s one of the reasons the final tragedy of marineford hits so hard and feels so cruel, because luffy succeeds, here. he saves ace. he gives absolutely everything he had and makes it, and saves ace. the ultimate failure isn’t his. there was nothing more he could have done. 

the first time i was reading one piece, i hit this page (which is also the last in the volume) and had to put the book away, take the bus downtown, wander around for a few hours, and buy myself some candy and some new books before i started feeling okay again.

the thing about ace’s death, i think, is that it’s a tragedy, but it also feels so completely essential to the story going forwards and luffy’s character growth specifically that it’s really, really hard to imagine one piece without it. there are a lot of (really excellent!) fix-fics out there for marineford, and although those are often really good and their authors super talented, i think it’s really hard for them to ever hit the same way canon does with regards to this. 

i always think of this scene specifically in contrast to zoro and mihawk’s fight, back on baratie. zoro and mihawk are both people who believe in honor in battle, true victory or death, and that’s reflected in their fight, in zoro’s refusal to turn and run even in the face of imminent death, and mihawk’s respect for that resolve. whitebeard, too, is an honorable man. he refuses to turn to run, even when facing certain death. 

the blackbeard pirates, however, are not. 

i do enjoy how, just like roger’s, ace’s execution backfires tremendously on the marines. this was entirely a predictable outcome, too! this exact thing happened twenty years ago! the marines don’t learn. they don’t change. they’re so assured of their own rightness and power that they make stupid mistakes like holding a massive public execution after the last one blew up in their faces. 

(this is why they need coby so badly, for the record, and why it’s important that he still decides to become a marine after witnessing their corruption firsthand in shells town. the marines are long overdue for a reformation, one that orients them towards real justice.)

i really, really enjoy crocodile in this saga. mostly because he hasn’t been redeemed at all, he’s still pretty much the exact same kinda awful person he was in alabasta, he’s just on luffy’s side this time, and it lets us see him in a better light, when he gets angry at whitebeard for nearly dying or when he helps luffy and jinbe escape to keep the marines from getting their way. few of one piece’s characters are truly so one-dimensional as they can seem, and i really appreciate that. 

i really really love all the interactions between luffy, ace and sabo as kids. they’re so fun and bounce off of each other so well. even though we only see them together for a brief time, they really feel like siblings. (which of course only makes later events hurt so much more.

i’ve always been a little fascinated by the fact that it takes us this long to get luffy’s full backstory. it’s almost a fakeout, because we get part of his backstory in the very first chapter, and we’re kind of led to believe that’s all there is. it’s not until ace’s introduction nearly two hundred chapters in that we’re given any indication there’s more.

but at the same time, it makes sense. marineford is luffy’s focus arc, as arlong park to nami or thriller bark to brook. he hasn’t had a focal arc that’s really about him before this, while all his other crewmates have. it makes sense that this would be when he finally gets his flashback. 

i think it’s cool that dragon and the revolutionaries show up at the grey terminal fire, because it’s one of the only looks we’ve gotten so far into what their actual regular operations are like. and, of course, they’re saving people. i really like this about the revolutionaries, that helping people in trouble is basically their modus operandi, when pretty much everyone else in one piece’s world mostly does saving on an incidental basis if at all. 

i think a lot about how the last line of sabo’s letter to ace is also both of their last words to the strawhats. 

death in one piece always feels much realer and more impactful to me than in most other series, and i think this is part of the reason why: in one piece, we are always shown the mourning. nami at bellemere’s grave, carrot grieving pedro, ace and whitebeard’s funeral. 

there are fewer deaths, comparatively, than most other series, but they’re given so much room to echo. we’re still feeling the impacts of ace’s life and death in the most recent chapters of wano. it ties into the theme of inherited will and all the way back to hiriluk’s final speech, of men not being dead so long as they’re remembered. 

the picture of luffy at marineford always kind of strikes me. he looks so young and so solemn, and yet much more himself than he did when we last saw him losing his mind on amazon lily. i really like it. 

sometimes i just think about the sheer depth of trust and love the strawhats must have in each other to separate for two years, far longer than they were ever together, to solely dedicate themselves to improving for the sake of crew and captain. none of them even hesitate, and none of them ever doubt that the crew will be reformed at the end of it.

after all, luffy keeps his promises. 

[gffa]

THE JEDI AS NATURAL, INSTINCTIVE TEACHERS IS A FUNDAMENTAL TO WHO THEY ARE AT THE CORE.  For @jedijune​‘s theme for Saturday, June 13th: Teaching/Learning

Taking a Closer Look at the Jedi Order in Star Wars Canon [Meta/Reference Guide]: Chapter 3: Teaching Is A Central Theme To The Jedi

Teaching is a central theme to the Jedi:     Obi-Wan:  “You’d make a good teacher.”     Anakin: “No thanks.”     Obi-Wan: “Anakin, teaching is a privilege. And it’s part of a Jedi’s responsibility to help train the next generation.” [Star Wars: The Clone Wars movie]

“Master Yoda said we never stop learning.  Perhaps the Master is meant to be as much a student as the Padawan.  I may not be the teacher that Qui-Gon was.  But I am the one that Anakin has.”  (–Obi-Wan Kenobi, Age of the Republic: Obi-Wan Kenobi #1)

Henry Gilroy and Dave Filoni on establishing Yoda as a teacher early on:      Gilroy:  "There were elements that we really wanted to explore, and that was things that were classic to Yoda, as a teacher.  We thought this was a great opportunity to show how the Jedi interact with the clones.  Specifically Yoda in a teaching role, of the clones, who were socially new, who were created to fight, and he really broadened their horizons, and helped them realize there was a great big universe out there that was bigger than just fighting and killing.“      Filoni:  "You see Yoda teaching the clones, much like he taught Luke, ‘cause that was kind of natural for them, a natural instinct to take these clones like their students. And it really allowed Yoda to have a scene that was reminiscent of a scene we both liked growing up, when he was teaching Luke.”       (Star Wars: The Clone Wars, “Ambush” commentary)

George Lucas on education (who believes it is the most fundamental issue):      “Plato didn’t teach [in the sense of drilling answers into them] people anything. All he did was ask questions.  The process was asking questions–'Why is the sky blue?’  It was purely a reverse of us feeding you all the information and [instead] teaching the kids how to learn.”       I find this is often the answer for why Yoda or the other Jedi don’t just lecture on the answers re: Force theology, because the narrative believe/creator’s belief is that it’s more important to teach how to ask a question than to drill in an answer.  A direct example is Yoda’s teachings to Ahsoka in “Teach You, I Will” getting her to think for herself and how George Lucas talks in an Empire Strikes Back documentary about Yoda’s bizarre speech patterns being about getting the audience to really stop and think about what the weird little frog man is saying.

JEDI PHILOSOPHY + TEACHINGS:

The Jedi did not see themselves as infallible or that failure was something any of them could avoid, even for their most esteemed Council members:     Depa Billaba:  "We cannot deny, Masters, that I failed you.  Failed you on a massive scale.“     Obi-Wan Kenobi:  "A lack of failure has never been a prerequisite to service, else none of us would be here.  Welcome back to the Council, Master Billaba.”  [Kanan: The Last Padawan]

The Jedi do not see themselves as a source of the light side of the Force, but rather the other way around.  In Darth Vader: Dark Lord of the Sith, Jocasta faces off against Vader and says:     “You are [Palpatine’s] tool.  Little better than a droid, set to stamp out the light side of the Force.  But this is impossible.  The Force is eternal.  It cannot be ended, it cannot be stopped, not so long as life exists.“ showing that, even if all the Jedi were dead, they knew that the light would still find its way in the galaxy, because the Force is eternal, the Force is in all life, the light is in all life, so long as that life exists.

“The Jedi can guide.  We can teach.  We can help people to help themselves.  But we are not an army.  If a people are truly determined to write themselves out of existence, there is little we can do.” [Obi-Wan & Anakin]

Questions are shown as natural and a good thing:     “A child, Anakin remains.  His path before coming to us, difficult.  His questions, natural.”  [–Yoda, Obi-Wan & Anakin]     "I have no issues with Anakin.  He is asking questions, as he should be at his age.“ [–Obi-Wan, Obi-Wan & Anakin]

It’s not just younglings that should be asking questions, but everyone:     "Answers, did you find?”     "I did.  And as often is with the Force, more questions.“     "Mmmm.  Good, questions are.  Ask them we must.  Certainty in our understanding, to arrogance it leads.  To the dark side.” [–Yoda, Qui-Gon, Age of the Republic - Qui-Gon Jinn #1]

Questions and determining your own path tend to be a big theme with the Jedi, that everyone must determine what they want for themselves, what they understand the Force has laid out their path to be and whether they want that, like with the above, and when it’s woven into the very decision that Ezra has to make, that Kanan can’t just tell him what to do on this:     “Which way is the right way?     “The wrong question, that is.”     “I’m sorry. I don’t understand. To be honest, I don’t even know what I’m doing here.”     “A better question, that is.”     “Kanan said I was gonna be tested, but he never said what for or why.”     “And your Master tell you everything, must he?”     “Well– No.”     “Your path you must decide.”  [–Ezra and Yoda, Star Wars Rebels, “Path of the Jedi”]

Obi-Wan taught Anakin that things should not be trampled just for acting according to their nature, instead (when they can) use the Force to move them along:       "These beasts are nearly mindless, Anakin.  I can feel it.  They are merely following their nature, they should not die simply because they crossed our path.  Use the Force to send them on their way.”  [Obi-Wan & Anakin]

Henry Gilroy says a similar thing with:     "Obi-Wan truly is a Jedi in that he’s like, ‘Okay, I’m not going to murder these creatures [in the Ryloth arc of The Clone Wars].  They’re starving to death.  They’ve basically been unleashed against these people as a weapon, but it’s not their fault. They’re just doing what they do.  They’re just animals who wanna eat.’  [Aggressive Negotiations Interview]

Ezra says he saw his parents and Kanan tells him what the Jedi teach:      "I saw them, Kanan. My parents. I-- I can't explain how."      "The Jedi teach that life doesn't cease at death, merely changes form in the Force. Your parents are alive inside you, Ezra. They will be. Always."  [Star Wars Rebels, "Legacy"]

JEDI AND THEIR STUDENTS:

A great emphasis is placed on teachers and students working together:  “Yoda cocked his head. ‘Adapt he must as well. Cooperation is learned not through individual effort. Only together can you progress.’” [Master and Apprentice] Yoda also says the bond between a Master and a Padawan is sacred.  [Dooku: Jedi Lost]

Jedi are never really done being students/being tested, even when they become teachers and Masters themselves, that students teach Masters just as Masters teach students, and their tests reflect this:   "But surely I should have been informed if you were testing my Padawan?“     "Who says the lesson was for him?” Bant said, smiling at her old friend.     Obi-Wan’s jaw dropped.  "You were testing me?“     "For both of you, the test was,” Yoda told him.     Mace nodded.  "A reminder that while Padawans must listen to their masters…“   "Teachers must also listen to their pupils,” Bant concluded.  [Choose Your Destiny:  Obi-Wan & Anakin]

“This is why we study.  Why we learn.  Skill is the child of patience.“  [Obi-Wan & Anakin]

"Your mission was never about [bringing back] the book.  It was about everything you did to find it.  All the challenges you had to face along the way.  And you overcame them all.”  "It was a test.“  "It was a journey, the next step in your training, and you succeeded in every way that mattered.” (–Luminara Unduli, Barriss Offee, Star Wars Adventures #20)

EARLY JEDI TEACHINGS/JEDI PHILOSOPHY 101:

As an overview of what Jedi teach as the early and foundational lessons, across multiple media, we see that meditation and self-reflection are just as important as bonding with their sacred crystal and practicing with their lightsaber, which then also connects with how so much of the early teachings Kanan gives Ezra when they're just starting are just as much/more focused on connection and understanding of self.  (As detailed below this!)  [Age of the Republic: Obi-Wan Kenobi + Kanan: The Last Padawan + Obi-Wan & Anakin]

One of the very first training sessions we see Kanan giving to Ezra–and thus informing our understanding of the foundations of Jedi teachings–is to have Ezra doing a handstand and tells him to, “Focus.  Focus on letting go.”  Eventually, trying to toss objects at him to get him into letting the Force move through him, hear its whispers instead of shouting at it.  Before Kanan brings out his lightsaber to practice with, he wants Ezra to first mentally focus.  [Star Wars Rebels, “Rise of the Old Masters”]

Another one of the earliest lessons Kanan teaches Ezra, putting it as one of the foundations of Jedi teachings is how they're connected to other beings:     “Step outside of yourself. Make a connection with another being.” as he teaches Ezra to connect with a loth-cat.       “I just don’t see the point of this.”     “The point is that you’re not alone. You’re connected to every living thing in the universe.”  [Star Wars Rebels, “Empire Day”]

When Kanan first starts training Ezra, he repeats Yoda’s saying of, “Do or do not.  There is no try.”  When Ezra questions it, Kanan says that he really doesn’t understand it, either.  By the end of the episode, after Kanan realizes Luminara can’t train Ezra, that he has to commit to Ezra instead of half-assing this, he says:     "I– Ezra. I’m not gonna try to teach you anymore. If all I do is try, that means I don’t truly believe I can succeed. So from now on, I will teach you.“  [Star Wars Rebels, “Rise of the Old Masters”]

Another early lesson is that Ezra must be honest with himself to advance as a Jedi:     “Ezra, you’ll never advance as a Jedi if you can’t be honest with yourself, at least.”     “What’s that supposed to mean?”     “It means Tseebo matters to you. You do care what happens to him.” [Star Wars Rebels, “Gathering Forces”]

Which is then reaffirmed later in that same episode:     “I got news for you, kid. Everyone’s afraid, but admitting it as you just did makes you braver than most, and it’s a step forward.” [–Kanan Jarrus, Star Wars Rebels, “Gathering Forces”]

Ezra has trouble moving forward in the first season because discipline and focus are fundamental to being a Jedi:     “But you said I was a Jedi. Why else would you be training me?”     “I never said you were a Jedi. I said you had the potential to become one. But you lack discipline, focus.” [Star Wars Rebels, “Path of the Jedi”]

JEDI CULTURE:

Jedi younglings (at least the diurnal ones) wake at dawn to meditate on the three pillars–the Force, Knowledge, and Self-Discipline.  Then they go to the refectory for lunch, where Dooku always likes to sit next to Sifo-Dyas. [Dooku: Jedi Lost]

The Jedi have a strong aesthetic that echoes the deepest parts of the Force–all circles and lines.  Time and the Force and the Jedi are all connected circles and arcing lines.

“You must not grow too attached, too fond, too in love with life as it is now.  The emotions are valuable and should not be suppressed… but you must learn to rule them, Padawan, lest they rule you.“  (Kanan: The Last Padawan)

“This man is perverting our sacred teachings to prey upon a vulnerable people.  I can think of little my tongue could say better than my saber in this instance.”      “Dissolve your hostility, Padawan.  Channel your frustrations into an appropriate emotion.  Violence, as always, is a last resort.”      “Of course.  Apologies, Master.”      “A fire burns inside of you, Padawn.  That, in itself, is not inherently wrong.  It is my job to help you temper it.” [Jedi of the Republic - Mace Windu]

JEDI AND FACING THE DARK SIDE:

“The fact that everything must change and that things come and go through [Anakin’s] life and that he can’t hold onto things, which is a basic Jedi philosophy that he isn’t willing to accept emotionally.”  (George Lucas, Attack of the Clones commentary)

The Jedi test from the Rebels episode “Path of the Jedi” novelization on facing their fears/the dark side within them:      "This test was not designed solely for the apprentice.  It was also a test for the master, for facing one’s fears was a lifelong struggle.” (Ezra’s Duel with Danger)

The test is specifically designed by the Jedi–as is the same test on Ilum for the Jedi younglings that they all had to face–to face their fears, because it didn’t just happen one time, it was something they faced all their lives, younglings and Knights and Masters, all of them.  This is why Ezra has to face it in Rebels, why Luke has to face it on Dagobah, why Rey has to face it on Ahch-To, the Jedi have always had to face the darkness within themselves and work beyond it.

Kanan also says it plainly as they enter the Temple:        “In here, you’ll have to face your worst fears and overcome them.” It’s pretty obvious that’s what happening when the Temple shows him a vision of the Grand Inquisitor killing Kanan and Ezra has to pick himself back up, admit what he’s feeling so he can face the fears again, and understand that he has to let them go and then it cannot hurt him here, the Grand Inquisitor’s blade passes right through him.  It’s then Yoda’s voice calls to him and we see that Ezra letting go of those fears allow him to move forward:      “Big fears have you faced, young one.”      “Yes.”      “Hmm. For what lies ahead, ready are you?”      “I am.”      “Come. See more clearly what you could not see before.” [Star Wars Rebels, “Path of the Jedi”]

When Cal is struggling with facing his fears and needs to create a new lightsaber, Cere gives him a pep talk and they head off to Ilum, where she tells him:  “You will be tested.  I don’t mean just here [on Ilum].  Every Jedi faces the dark side.  And it’s very easy to fail.  We will always struggle.  But that is the test.  It’s the choice to keep fighting that makes us who we are."  [–Cere Junda, Jedi: Fallen Order]

THE THEME OF GEORGE LUCAS’ MOVIES:

George Lucas says, “All of my movies are about one thing.  Which is the fact that the only prison you’re in is the prison of your mind.  And if you decide to open the door and get out, you can.  There’s nothing stopping you.“ –George Lucas (American Voices, 2015)

Which is reflected in the teachings of the Jedi, which further shows they’re in line with the narrative intentions of Star Wars:   Petro:  “You-you said we would be trapped.”   Yoda:  “Not by the cave you were but by your mind. Lessons, you have learned. Find courage, you did. Hope, patience Trust, confidence, and selflessness.” (The Clone Wars, “The Gathering”)

[seldaryne]

I’ve mentioned it to @illithidactivities before, but my biggest problem with how people engage with these endings is reducing them down to simply “good” or “bad.”

If we’re looking at them purely from a character standpoint, then they both end up making sense as natural consequences for the leading series of events. I don’t think there’s a massive gap in characterization; if anything, it’s actually pretty consistent. The biggest thing I wish people would understand when engaging with the text is that one ending functions as more of a tragedy, while the other one isn’t (I hesitate to blanket-label it as a happy ending, and I think that’s because it comes off to me as more open-ended than Ascension).

If the narrative you’re trying to tell is a tragedy, then go for it! Because that’s not a moral strike against someone. Likewise, preferring the Spawn ending doesn’t land you squarely on the ‘good’ side of the discussion either. It’s just a choice you’ve made for your particular story.

Interpersonal conflicts aside, there’s no reason to position yourself as a victim regardless of the side you’re coming at it from. I have seen it generally more from the Ascended side of things, which I think you can probably partially attribute to the reality of choosing what (from what I can tell anecdotally) is the minority opinion. But genuinely I think that the problem here is the fact that trying to concretely pin down your choice as ‘good v. bad’ isn’t the conversation that should be had or is even worth having.

If you feel the need to defend your preferences, rather than automatically going on the defensive & arguing from a place of needing to be objectively correct in a situation that doesn’t actually offer a definitive answer, I think it would be better to approach it from the angle of “this choice supports the type of story I want to tell/I’m interested in.”

There are pros and cons you can argue for each narrative. For the Ascended side specifically, I think it’s doing a major disservice to ignore the weight of the decision in Astarion’s personal narrative. You’re cutting yourself off from fully leaning into the inevitable collateral damage of the choice and what that could actually mean for both him & your character.

Or conversely, maybe you’re not looking to get that deep with it and you just vibe more with this energy, and honestly that’s fine too? Vampire media is definitely not a stranger to dark content for the sake of dark content (even just thinking of my own preferences, yeah, sometimes you do just want to see something a little fucked up for the sake of it). But even interacting with the content this way still hinges on preferential acknowledgement & not watering down what’s been presented to you.

Personally my biggest issue with a lot of this discourse comes down to the way I continually see ‘I like this story better’ behind a veil of superiority and a discreet attempt to stir the pot with the other side. (And as far as the post I’m tacking onto goes, before anyone points that out—this is a verbal conversation op and I have already had, so I’m coming at this with additional tonal knowledge/context). It’s reductive and frankly frustrating to see some of the wild levels of hostility I’ve spotted and discovering that the base for the argument is an interpretation of canon that doesn’t have any contextual basis.

There is collateral for any decision made in the companion quests, positive or negative. It doesn’t make sense to act like there isn’t, and assuming that you’re arguing canon points, this failure of acknowledgement discredits whatever you have to say after.

ascended truthers who try to justify killing 7000 people or even leaving them locked in those cells for all eternity are wild. the spawn aren’t “people” and are just dangerous monsters, but somehow Astarion is a person and not a dangerous monster?

if you truly believed they were not people, you’d kill Astarion in act 1 and be done with it. it’s hypocrisy otherwise.

also as someone who’s played Vampire: The Masquerade, they really COULD be ravenous monsters who are too far gone to be helped. if they were, though, the second someone with a pulse walked into that hallway, they would have been snarling and lunging at the gate trying to get to you. conversation wouldn’t be on the table. but they don’t do that, they clearly have their wits about them, and even the children are managing to control themselves.

besides that, if you let them free and Gandrel is still alive, you can find him and the kids in the sewer, working on finding ways to feed without hurting people. the kids are struggling a bit, but they haven’t hurt their parents, and they’re doing well with the cards they’ve been dealt.

it’s just really annoying for ascended fans to tell spawn fans over and over how we’re actually the terrible ones for giving 7000 people a chance to live rather than sacrifice them to create a power hungry madman or leave them locked up forever. I don’t care if you want to live your vampire dom/sub fantasies, but that is objectively Astarion continuing the cycle of abuse and it’s dumb to get mad at me for saying that when it’s just objectively the truth. It’s fine to enjoy the toxic relationship, but don’t act like I’m wrong for not wanting that and wanting to see a happier story play out.

[arcticdementor]

Imagine that the US was competing in a space race with some third world country, say Zambia, for whatever reason. Americans of course would have orders of magnitude more money to throw at the problem, and the most respected aerospace engineers in the world, with degrees from the best universities and publications in the top journals. Zambia would have none of this. What should our reaction be if, after a decade, Zambia had made more progress?

Obviously, it would call into question the entire field of aerospace engineering. What good were all those Google Scholar pages filled with thousands of citations, all the knowledge gained from our labs and universities, if Western science gets outcompeted by the third world?

For all that has been said about Afghanistan, no one has noticed that this is precisely what just happened to political science. The American-led coalition had countless experts with backgrounds pertaining to every part of the mission on their side: people who had done their dissertations on topics like state building, terrorism, military-civilian relations, and gender in the military. General David Petraeus, who helped sell Obama on the troop surge that made everything in Afghanistan worse, earned a PhD from Princeton and was supposedly an expert in “counterinsurgency theory.” Ashraf Ghani, the just deposed president of the country, has a PhD in anthropology from Columbia and is the co-author of a book literally called Fixing Failed States. This was his territory. It’s as if Wernher von Braun had been given all the resources in the world to run a space program and had been beaten to the moon by an African witch doctor.

…

Phil Tetlock’s work on experts is one of those things that gets a lot of attention, but still manages to be underrated. In his 2005 Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know?, he found that the forecasting abilities of subject-matter experts were no better than educated laymen when it came to predicting geopolitical events and economic outcomes. As Bryan Caplan points out, we shouldn’t exaggerate the results here and provide too much fodder for populists; the questions asked were chosen for their difficulty, and the experts were being compared to laymen who nonetheless had met some threshold of education and competence.

At the same time, we shouldn’t put too little emphasis on the results either. They show that “expertise” as we understand it is largely fake. Should you listen to epidemiologists or economists when it comes to COVID-19? Conventional wisdom says “trust the experts.” The lesson of Tetlock (and the Afghanistan War), is that while you certainly shouldn’t be getting all your information from your uncle’s Facebook Wall, there is no reason to start with a strong prior that people with medical degrees know more than any intelligent person who honestly looks at the available data.

…

I think one of the most interesting articles of the COVID era was a piece called “Beware of Facts Man” by Annie Lowrey, published in The Atlantic.

…

The reaction to this piece was something along the lines of “ha ha, look at this liberal who hates facts.” But there’s a serious argument under the snark, and it’s that you should trust credentials over Facts Man and his amateurish takes. In recent days, a 2019 paper on “Epistemic Trespassing” has been making the rounds on Twitter. The theory that specialization is important is not on its face absurd, and probably strikes most people as natural. In the hard sciences and other places where social desirability bias and partisanship have less of a role to play, it’s probably a safe assumption. In fact, academia is in many ways premised on the idea, as we have experts in “labor economics,” “state capacity,” “epidemiology,” etc. instead of just having a world where we select the smartest people and tell them to work on the most important questions.

But what Tetlock did was test this hypothesis directly in the social sciences, and he found that subject-matter experts and Facts Man basically tied.

…

Interestingly, one of the best defenses of “Facts Man” during the COVID era was written by Annie Lowrey’s husband, Ezra Klein. His April 2021 piece in The New York Times showed how economist Alex Tabarrok had consistently disagreed with the medical establishment throughout the pandemic, and was always right. You have the “Credentials vs. Facts Man” debate within one elite media couple. If this was a movie they would’ve switched the genders, but since this is real life, stereotypes are confirmed and the husband and wife take the positions you would expect.

…

In the end, I don’t think my dissertation contributed much to human knowledge, making it no different than the vast majority of dissertations that have been written throughout history. The main reason is that most of the time public opinion doesn’t really matter in foreign policy. People generally aren’t paying attention, and the vast majority of decisions are made out of public sight. How many Americans know or care that North Macedonia and Montenegro joined NATO in the last few years? Most of the time, elites do what they want, influenced by their own ideological commitments and powerful lobby groups. In times of crisis, when people do pay attention, they can be manipulated pretty easily by the media or other partisan sources.

If public opinion doesn’t matter in foreign policy, why is there so much study of public opinion and foreign policy? There’s a saying in academia that “instead of measuring what we value, we value what we can measure.” It’s easy to do public opinion polls and survey experiments, as you can derive a hypothesis, get an answer, and make it look sciency in charts and graphs. To show that your results have relevance to the real world, you cite some papers that supposedly find that public opinion matters, maybe including one based on a regression showing that under very specific conditions foreign policy determined the results of an election, and maybe it’s well done and maybe not, but again, as long as you put the words together and the citations in the right format nobody has time to check any of this. The people conducting peer review on your work will be those who have already decided to study the topic, so you couldn’t find a more biased referee if you tried.

Thus, to be an IR scholar, the two main options are you can either use statistical methods that don’t work, or actually find answers to questions, but those questions are so narrow that they have no real world impact or relevance. A smaller portion of academics in the field just produce postmodern-generator style garbage, hence “feminist theories of IR.” You can also build game theoretic models that, like the statistical work in the field, are based on a thousand assumptions that are probably false and no one will ever check. The older tradition of Kennan and Mearsheimer is better and more accessible than what has come lately, but the field is moving away from that and, like a lot of things, towards scientism and identity politics.

…

At some point, I decided that if I wanted to study and understand important questions, and do so in a way that was accessible to others, I’d have a better chance outside of the academy. Sometimes people thinking about an academic career reach out to me, and ask for advice. For people who want to go into the social sciences, I always tell them not to do it. If you have something to say, take it to Substack, or CSPI, or whatever. If it’s actually important and interesting enough to get anyone’s attention, you’ll be able to find funding.

If you think your topic of interest is too esoteric to find an audience, know that my friend Razib Khan, who writes about the Mongol empire, Y-chromosomes and haplotypes and such, makes a living doing this. If you want to be an experimental physicist, this advice probably doesn’t apply, and you need lab mates, major funding sources, etc. If you just want to collect and analyze data in a way that can be done without institutional support, run away from the university system.

The main problem with academia is not just the political bias, although that’s another reason to do something else with your life. It’s the entire concept of specialization, which holds that you need some secret tools or methods to understand what we call “political science” or “sociology,” and that these fields have boundaries between them that should be respected in the first place. Quantitative methods are helpful and can be applied widely, but in learning stats there are steep diminishing returns.

…

Outside of political science, are there other fields that have their own equivalents of “African witch doctor beats von Braun to the moon” or “the Taliban beats the State Department and the Pentagon” facts to explain? Yes, and here are just a few examples.

Consider criminology. More people are studying how to keep us safe from other humans than at any other point in history. But here’s the US murder rate between 1960 and 2018, not including the large uptick since then.

So basically, after a rough couple of decades, we’re back to where we were in 1960. But we’re actually much worse, because improvements in medical technology are keeping a lot of people that would’ve died 60 years ago alive. One paper from 2002 says that the murder rate would be 5 times higher if not for medical developments since 1960. I don’t know how much to trust this, but it’s surely true that we’ve made some medical progress since that time, and doctors have been getting a lot of experience from all the shooting victims they have treated over the decades. Moreover, we’re much richer than we were in 1960, and I’m sure spending on public safety has increased. With all that, we are now about tied with where we were almost three-quarters of a century ago, a massive failure.

What about psychology? As of 2016, there were 106,000 licensed psychologists in the US. I wish I could find data to compare to previous eras, but I don’t think anyone will argue against the idea that we have more mental health professionals and research psychologists than ever before. Are we getting mentally healthier? Here’s suicides in the US from 1981 to 2016

…

What about education? I’ll just defer to Freddie deBoer’s recent post on the topic, and Scott Alexander on how absurd the whole thing is.

Maybe there have been larger cultural and economic forces that it would be unfair to blame criminology, psychology, and education for. Despite no evidence we’re getting better at fighting crime, curing mental problems, or educating children, maybe other things have happened that have outweighed our gains in knowledge. Perhaps the experts are holding up the world on their shoulders, and if we hadn’t produced so many specialists over the years, thrown so much money at them, and gotten them to produce so many peer reviews papers, we’d see Middle Ages-levels of violence all across the country and no longer even be able to teach children to read. Like an Ayn Rand novel, if you just replaced the business tycoons with those whose work has withstood peer review.

Or you can just assume that expertise in these fields is fake. Even if there are some people doing good work, either they are outnumbered by those adding nothing or even subtracting from what we know, or our newly gained understanding is not being translated into better policies. Considering the extent to which government relies on experts, if the experts with power are doing things that are not defensible given the consensus in their fields, the larger community should make this known and shun those who are getting the policy questions so wrong. As in the case of the Afghanistan War, this has not happened, and those who fail in the policy world are still well regarded in their larger intellectual community.

…

Those opposed to cancel culture have taken up the mantle of “intellectual diversity” as a heuristic, but there’s nothing valuable about the concept itself. When I look at the people I’ve come to trust, they are diverse on some measures, but extremely homogenous on others. IQ and sensitivity to cost-benefit considerations seem to me to be unambiguous goods in figuring out what is true or what should be done in a policy area. You don’t add much to your understanding of the world by finding those with low IQs who can’t do cost-benefit analysis and adding them to the conversation.

One of the clearest examples of bias in academia and how intellectual diversity can make the conversation better is the work of Lee Jussim on stereotypes. Basically, a bunch of liberal academics went around saying “Conservatives believe in differences between groups, isn’t that terrible!” Lee Jussim, as someone who is relatively moderate, came along and said “Hey, let’s check to see whether they’re true!” This story is now used to make the case for intellectual diversity in the social sciences.

Yet it seems to me that isn’t the real lesson here. Imagine if, instead of Jussim coming forward and asking whether stereotypes are accurate, Osama bin Laden had decided to become a psychologist. He’d say “The problem with your research on stereotypes is that you do not praise Allah the all merciful at the beginning of all your papers.” If you added more feminist voices, they’d say something like “This research is problematic because it’s all done by men.” Neither of these perspectives contributes all that much. You’ve made the conversation more diverse, but dumber. The problem with psychology was a very specific one, in that liberals are particularly bad at recognizing obvious facts about race and sex. So yes, in that case the field could use more conservatives, not “more intellectual diversity,” which could just as easily make the field worse as make it better. And just because political psychology could use more conservative representation when discussing stereotypes doesn’t mean those on the right always add to the discussion rather than subtract from it. As many religious Republicans oppose the idea of evolution, we don’t need the “conservative” position to come and help add a new perspective to biology.

The upshot is intellectual diversity is a red herring, usually a thinly-veiled plea for more conservatives. Nobody is arguing for more Islamists, Nazis, or flat earthers in academia, and for good reason. People should just be honest about the ways in which liberals are wrong and leave it at that.

…

The failure in Afghanistan was mind-boggling. Perhaps never in the history of warfare had there been such a resource disparity between two sides, and the US-backed government couldn’t even last through the end of the American withdrawal. One can choose to understand this failure through a broad or narrow lens. Does it only tell us something about one particular war or is it a larger indictment of American foreign policy?

The main argument of this essay is we’re not thinking big enough. The American loss should be seen as a complete discrediting of the academic understanding of “expertise,” with its reliance on narrowly focused peer reviewed publications and subject matter knowledge as the way to understand the world. Although I don’t develop the argument here, I think I could make the case that expertise isn’t just fake, it actually makes you worse off because it gives you a higher level of certainty in your own wishful thinking. The Taliban probably did better by focusing their intellectual energies on interpreting the Holy Quran and taking a pragmatic approach to how they fought the war rather than proceeding with a prepackaged theory of how to engage in nation building, which for the West conveniently involved importing its own institutions.

A discussion of the practical implications of all this, or how we move from a world of specialization to one with better elites, is also for another day. For now, I’ll just emphasize that for those thinking of choosing an academic career to make universities or the peer review system function better, my advice is don’t. The conversation is much more interesting, meaningful, and oriented towards finding truth here on the outside.

[bakubaewritings]

God of War

Bakugo x reader

Your up-brining was much unlike others born into nobility, you were taught to read and write along with various battle strategies. Being born into one of the country's most powerful kingdoms, what had begun as a small group of nomadic warriors, became the build of one of the most powerful nations in the country.

Your father had seen many wars in his day, conquer all, defend everything.

Every village, every kingdom worshipped the gods, but every village had its own select God. Ares, the God of war, or as your village knew him, Bakugo. He was a violent and destructive god with an explosive temper.

He was the God of your people, he gave them the strength to defeat any battle. Ares' presence was felt in all the temples made in dedication, his face plastered on murals and statues.

You never understand why such the appeal, the forced ideals of superior of man, and the bloodshed of war never seemed right in your mind. If the choice was, you'd chose to lay your hands into Artemis or Athena.

However, after so many possible suitors came from all over in an attempt to win your heart, all failed. Your father became worried. It seemed after so many failures, no man wanted to wed you.

You had no problem with that, for you couldn't be satisfied with these pigs.

The men looked at you as a prize to be won, not a person to be loved and cherished. They were all power-hungry, bloodthirsty pigs with no respect for women of any, you wanted no part what so ever.

Little did you know someone was watching you. Lusting over you. A being of immense power who became intoxicated by you. But this was no mere mortal, this was the God himself.

After months and months, your father found himself in your village's biggest temple for the hotheaded God himself. It was a gorgeous temple by the base of the river. Massive stone columns framed the circular temple, vines of black flowers grew up from the banks of the river and up the sides of the coulombs.

Every night on his knees, praying that the God of war would finally let you meet a man that could have your hand in marriage. He pleaded that the gods smiled down upon and grant you a husband.

"Please, my God, bless my daughter with the greatest man. I beg you, one that can tame her wild spirit, a strong warrior, someone worthy of her." He pleaded

He prayed the fates would hear his plea.

However, the fates seemed to be against your entire city as a call for help filled the air that night. Your village was being attacked by barbarians from the south. Their numbers in the thousands.

"We are under attack!" The screams filled the air, the sound of men woman and children crying and screaming.

It awoke you form your slumber with a startle, screaming and crying, you were pulled out of bed. Thrown over a firm and robust shoulder, you cried out in confusion.

"My princess, we have to get out. We are under attack."

Your father's face contoured in terror as he witnessed a fire grow, he shouted in anger. Calling for men to prepare for battle against the army of trespassers. That was when ha heavy black smoke pooled around his feet, covering the floor of the temple. A deep chuckle shook the walls.

Turning around slowly, wide fear-filled eyes, he watched the statue of the war god, once cold stone filled with the warmth of life. The gray color became one of a creamy porcelain tone.

"You," his voice was rough and loud, it echoed through the temple.

"My god." Came a shriek of fear. He couldn't bring himself to look upon God's ruby red eyes. His stare was cold.

"Well, are you going to look at me, mortal."

Reluctantly your father lifted his head to look upon God.

"My god, to what I owe the honor." His words were shakey.

"listen to you puny mortal, I will defeat the invaders for you."

"Oh, thank you, my god-" Your father began bowing up and down sprawled upon the marble floors, his eyes clouded with tears of thankfulness.

"For a price." Interrupted the porcelain-skinned God.

"My God, what can I offer you? Anything you wish in my power, I will give you to save the lives of my people."

The gods' lips curled into a devouring smirk, "your daughter."

"Hurry, we must exit the city," the guard carried you in his arm tightly, your arms gripped to his cloak. Following behind, many were of the servants and others that lived in the castle.

"Wait please, where is my father?" You cried, pounding on the back of the guard.

"By the riverbank, my princess, we must evacuate the civilians and escape on the ships while the warriors go to fight back the intruders.."

"My, my daughter?"

"Did I stutter? Look around you mortal, your people are dropping like flies." The God's voice boomed inside the temple, the roar of his voice, causing the ground to shake. "Your daughter hand for your people, one life, for the lives of your whole village."

Your father gulped, he had already lost your mother he was not ready to lose his daughter, "Will no harm come to her?" He asked

With a wide smirk, the God's vermillion eyes shined a magnificent ruby color illuminating the dark temple. "You're in such a position to make demands to a god. But yes. Now, do we have a deal?"

With a heavy heart, your father nodded. If it hadn't been Ares' own temple, anyone would have believed they were speaking to hades. The way Ares carried himself, a bloodthirsty barbarian eager to bring down his enemies.

The God rose from the stone throne, his skin began to glow a dark armor covered by his skin, as black as the night sky. With a heavy swing of his brilliant silver word, he flew into battle. Slaying all the barbarians in his way. They fell to his feet as their blood stained the grounds of the village. One by one, they fell, and their numbers dwindled, no army was a match for the God of war.

"Father!" You ran into the arms of the man who had raised you for your whole life. He kneeled in the broken temple; the ground was cracked and uneven. His skin white as a ghost, "You're alright." The moment you were in his arms, he wrapped around your shoulders tightly, pulling you closer to him. Tears began to fall upon you as your silk gown.

"Father? What's the matter?" You cupped his head gently

"Your majesty, we must evacuate, the ships are filled with civilians." The guard informed your father.

"That won't be needed. We are going to be safe." His voice came out shaky, a painful crooked smile painted his face as his eyes continued to spill tears.

"Father, what is happening?" You questioned, fear beginning to take over.

"I am so sorry, my child." You ripped away from his hold

"Father, what did you do?"

Your head turned slowly to face the unfolding scene. Your eyes widened in complete fear. Behind you, the city was in disarray; civilians poured out from the gates as they ran away from the massacre behind them.

Lighting and thunder pounded into the ground from the heavens as they surrounded him, the armor covered God. His silver sword stained with blood, and the grin on his face. It sent a shivering fear down to your core. Every kill was another climax of pleasure; in battle, he was in his element.

With one last strike, the last few fell to the ground. Finally, the invaders were dead.

Ares' head fell back with a victorious smile covering his face as he completed his mission. But now he'd only claim his promised prize.

His sharp eyes fell upon you. It took in every inch of your figure. Surely, you were no mere mortal, you couldn't be. Aphrodite herself couldn't complete with your beauty. You were perfect, and now you were his. His to claim. He sauntered towards you, his eyes never once left your body. Licking his lips as hi eyes traveled to your frame.

Lewd thoughts filled his head every second. How could a mortal be so extremely arousing?

He stood in front of you, towering over your frame, yes he was a god, and they were much taller than mortals, but he was like a giant, at almost twice your height.

"You'll be coming with me, princess." The terror that took hold of you as those words fell from his lips. His large arm wrapped around your waist tightly, pulling you towards him. You squirmed in his grasp, clawing in an attempt to release from his grip. His blood stains armor painted your colorless gown.

"let me go, let me go." You demanded, your eyes darted to meet your fathers pleading him to please help you.

But he did nothing, instead just watched as a rough, calloused hand cupped your chin.

You came face to face with him, face to face with the God of war himself. Blood-splattered his all over his face, did not hide his rugged good looks. He was an incredibly handsome man, his spiky ash-blonde locks that hung over his eyebrows. His skin was pale, although the moonlight seemed to emulate a glow.

"Let go of me this instant!" You screamed pushing away from, you didn't care one bit that he was a god. He had slaughtered thousands and just expected you to fall into his arms.

"I will do what I wish you are mine." You felt the rumble in his chest as he spoke, "you're father agreed to it himself." The gods' lips curled up into a wide villainous smirk.

"my, my father?" Your stuttered words made him let out a low chuckle. From so long he had watched you from afar, he quite expected some defiance from you. Unlike another woman that would throw themselves at a chance to be claimed by a god, you held your own. Yes, you were afraid, but you still were strong enough to defy him.

Apologies rained from your father's lips, as he attempted to explain. But even in his head, he couldn't figure out how to make sense of what he had done. Given his daughter's life away. However, you understood. Your father had done what any king would have, he sacrificed all he had for the good of his people. You could never be angry at him for that. With a sorrow-filled goodbye, you hugged your father unknowingly when you would see him again.

"You're new home awaits my princess." The God growled in your ear lowly as he ripped you from your father's grasp. "No, please, I want to stay with my father with my people." You cried in his tight grip, clawing in an attempt to get away, but it was no use, and within seconds your father and your people faded from your sights.

Ares knew you couldn't be taken you Olympus. You were mortal after all, so the next best thing was a temple in the mountains near the eastern sea. It had been abandoned for ages, the villagers that had once lived there long passed. However, it was still beautifully maintained. Many nymphs made their homes by the temple.

It was like a dream, flowers of every color decorated the temple, and the sun shined bright over the land. The ocean from below crashed onto the hot sand with a melodic chant. It was beautiful and serene.

The atmosphere much different than how you grew up. You wished you could have shown your father how beautiful it all was. Your chest was still tight at the fact you'd most likely never see him again. However, if it was your father's will that you went with the Gods' to ensure the safety of your people, you wouldn't disobey.

But in brute honesty, the God of war was the last person you'd ever want to share your life with. Everything he stood for, bloodshed and war, you disagreed with. Not to mentions the stories of the gods' affairs with the goddess Aphrodite and many others. Surely you weren't the first mortal he had taken.

Your guard was kept up; if anything, you would die fighting.

"Y/n." Your name sounded so foreign as it left his tongue, it caused a shiver to slithered down your spine. His smell was intoxicating as you felt his sharp jaw come to rest on your shoulder. With a sharp inhale, you tensed up.

The young God kissed his teeth, "I won't hurt you. I wasn't planning on it in the first place, but If it makes you feel better, I promised your father no harm would come to you, and I never break a promise. You don't have to be afraid."

You let out a scoff, "well, I'm sorry I am not like other women who would throw themselves at the chance to fuck Ares. I will not be treated as property or just some a piece of meat." He laughed, "I've watched you for much time, you're not like any other mortal. Nor are you like any other goddess. You are special. You, Y/n, are the only one worthy of being my wife." He nipped playfully at your ear

"Ares.." You whimpered softly.

"Katsuki Bakugo will do just fine."

"Bakugo, Katsuki." The way his name fell from your lips drew the young God into madness. Infatuation filled him, curiosity to get to know you, closer to you. For so long, he had watched you pined for you.

You, a mortal, had made a god fall in love with you. Not just any God.

The God Of War.

[gascon-en-exil]

I was going to make this a reblog on one of several discussions in this general vein that have popped up recently, but it turned out to be too lengthy of a tangent so here we are.

It always bugs me when discussion of “queer representation” in these games comes exclusively in the form of comparing Avatar same-sex S ranks. I mean, more than how the whole bit of only consuming media as a moral/ideological statement strikes me as an exercise in futility, anyway. Especially for something like Fire Emblem where the fandom is filled with an endless loop of people discovering for the first time just how much incest there is in this series....

But it is something to be said for Three Houses that it brought back same-sex paired endings for the first time since Ike’s notorious endings in Radiant Dawn. Awakening and Fates pulled away from the heavy subtext approach of the GBA and Tellius games to resurrect Genealogy’s eugenics babies with a side of self-insert dating sim, and as a result the homoerotic content is quite thin on the ground for both those games. No one’s ever been able to sell me on the lasting appeal of Chrom/Frederick or Leokumi or whatever because there’s so little to work with in canon and those characters clearly have bigger things going on even aside from the time travel/microwave child soldiers and also because I’m not super invested in either game’s setting or story but that’s another matter. Echoes went the opposite route, allowing the player no input in its units’ postgame lives short of killing them, and Gaiden’s severe lack of gender parity along with standard Kaga misogyny combined to gift its remake with a veritable cornucopia of subtextual male queerness that we all know could only flourish as it did because there was no Avatar everyone was contractually obligated to bang.

FE16 combines those concepts for the first time, and if there were ever any doubts in my mind that I preferred nondefinitive subtext between two developed, non-self-insert characters over the certainty of Avatar S ranks this game silenced them for good. Thanks in large part to the massive failure of a fully realized character that is Byleth I honestly forget about who they can S rank much of the time. In my ranking of my least liked Three Houses characters Jeritza made second worst with no more than some light snark referencing Bylitza, because as dodgy as it is for an Avatar-endorsed queer rep to be a mentally unwell serial killer who either doesn’t fully understand how sex works or has a graphic blood play fetish there are so many other more glaring problems with the character. Similarly, I enjoy Yuri’s dynamic with Balthus and bemoan the lack of chemistry Linhardt has with Caspar but almost never think of them as characters who can S rank m!Byleth. When I’m enjoying Three Houses’s M/M content and preferring it to Fates and especially Awakening on that score I’m talking about Dimidue and Ferdibert and Balthuri and Lions OT5 (plus Balthus, et al) and twisting my head and squinting to try to make out what so many people apparently see in Claude that warrants shipping him with guys. Byleth is irrelevant to me, to the point that I’m actively glad that m!Byleth can’t S rank Dimitri or Claude because we have ample evidence that Edelgard’s already shaky writing is even shakier because she’s bi-for-Byleth and the script can work under the assumption that the two of them are crushing on each other regardless of route or Byleth’s gender. It’s ironic, but I believe that a big part of why I consider Dimitri to be in the running with Ike for the title of gayest non-Avatar male lord is that he can’t S rank m!Byleth but does have subtext-laden options comparable to Ike.

Perhaps I’m in the minority here because I get enough dick in my personal/professional life to where I have no interest in trying to get more through a video game proxy, but I’d much rather have queer stories with two (or more) developed characters who can interact as equals on the metanarrative level because one isn’t expressly designed as an audience surrogate. It might the certainty of the S rank that appeals to people, but that just doesn’t work for me when it’s such a bland, awkwardly formed certainty.

[talldarkandroguesome]

21st of Hearthfire, Tirdas

What a satisfying day it has been. 

My task for Naryu, stealing certain Redoran records could not have been more easy. A new recruit could have done it with their eyes closed. any thief with even half their wits about them could take everything from the building without being noticed.

Really, are the Redoran so comfortable in Balmora they do not know how to secure their own people’s private information? Is their reputation as the House of the strongest fighters really enough that no one else has made a single attempt? It is all rather shameful. I almost felt guilty doing it. It was too easy.

I understand why Naryu sent me though. There are major ramifications for working outside of the prescribed activities, particularly when they are illegal, personal, and involve the Houses.  If a writ was involved, it would be a different story. This was something else entirely.

It felt good to have Naryu owe me a favor though. It has been a while since she has, actually. Usually it is more the other way round. 

I met Naryu down in her safehouse and delivered the registry, as promised, before the moons were even turned to sink in the sky.

Of course, I also snuck a look into the registry myself. Never hurts to gather information that might prove useful later on. Naryu asked if I had read it and I just smiled. There was no need to lie.

She just laughed, her hair falling back from her face. It was good to see her laugh. She deserves far more genuine happiness than ever she seems to find. 

Naryu asked me if I learned anything interesting in the files and I told her that it was not much, just information about the son of a councilor Eris who had been exiled. That made her brows furrow and she said that could not possibly be right, since the son, Ulran, was apparently an exemplary officer in the House guard. She said she needed to learn more about everything.

I told her I would usually offer my help, but that I had my own House obligations to head to Ald’ruhn. She seemed a little disappointed and joked that maybe I had grown up if I was no longer chasing her across the provinces for the honor of working by her side.

We laughed. I asked if there was anything more I could do on my way or before I headed out. She said she needed to learn more, but asked if I would not find the exiled guard’s sister to let her know what I had found.

I said I would at first light and before the sky had brightened, I headed out towards where Naryu had directed me. It was not too far from where I was going to be heading anyway, only about an hour or so west of Ald’ruhn, and besides, any more I can do for Naryu, I would like to.

If my brother had disappeared and it turned out he was exiled by my own House under mysterious circumstances that were unknown, apparently even when my father, a councilmer knew of them, I would be scraping for any information I could. I understood how difficult that place of a parent being on the House Council and not letting you know what was happening to your family can be. I have been there myself far too many times.

So I headed out and ran into a Redoran captain barking orders at Khajiit soldiers, though not of the House. I stopped and asked him about what was going on in the area, since I was a simple traveler and did not want to risk too much danger.

The mer looked me up and down and then told me I should wait in the city until things were cleared. Something about a Councilmer’s daughter being returned home after her implied kidnapping. Something felt off about it though. Why were there non-House soldier involved? How bad was the truth if he was willing to imply that House Redoran had made enough mistakes to let one of their own councilor’s daughters be kidnapped?

I played the role of the concerned citizen and told him I would head back right away and rushed back down the road. Once I was out of sight, I drew my shadows to me and head out across the swamp. I heard a couple of the soldiers talking to one another. My Ta’agra is abhorrent, but I still heard something about the brother killing one of his own for someone else. Perhaps that is why Naryu was involved. Maybe he had joined, or had applied to join the Morag Tong. Then was set to kill someone in his House and things did not work out properly?

I did not stay to try and learn more. Instead I continued until I had passed where they seemed to be searching. It was not long before I happened upon a young mer, crouched down behind a large rock. I came and squatted down, asking her if there was danger ahead.

She startled and turned to me in surprise, pulling out a dagger. Then seeing I was not in a threatening position told me not to sneak up on a person and asked if I was with the Warclaws.

I told her I had no idea who the Warclaws were, then asked if she had a brother named Ulran. Her eyes brightened with recognition. She said I must be the one Naryu had been working with. I laughed and told her, yes, Naryu and I were old friends.

She told me she wanted to hear everything I had to say, but that with the swamp teeming with mercenaries, we should go to her hideout to talk, but that the mercenaries were sniffing around by where the entrance was and she could not get inside. We got a bit closer and I looked to see that, sure enough, there were three of them wandering around, almost guarding the area.

I told her that I would take care of them and that as soon as she saw they were down, to run to the cave and I would follow her. She raised and eyebrow as she looked me up and down and told me that a merchant thief trying to play chivalrous was likely to wind up dead.

With a laugh I bowed my head and told her that stealing was a side part to my occupation and that Naryu and I had far more in common than she might think. Then I teleported away and behind the mercenary who was furthest from the other two. I shoved a paralyizing needle into the soft, unprotected area in the neck between helm and gorget. She did not make a sound as she fell into my arms, solid as a rock. I grabbed her head and gave a might twist, hearing the crack that let me know her life was over. I dropped her to the ground, just as one of the others turned.

I gathered the shadows to me once more, feeling that rush of my youth once more. I was seventy again, wild and free and sending souls to my Prince in service of a goal. Hoping that, if I did well enough, Naryu and I would soon meet up for a nice drink.

The mercenaries shouted as they ran to their fallen friend, trying to determine what had befallen her. The one in the back, an archer was the right height that I could easily give myself a moment to line up just before I swung my sword at his throat. He gasped, a long hiss of air as he groped at his neck. His companion finally catching a glimpse of me.

I teleported behind her and got my dagger in her side as she started to turn, an elbow just grazing my cheek as I pulled back quickly. Then I teleported a distance away and decided to try out some of my less practiced magicka. I had an audience after all, and I thought it would be jolly fun to make a bit of an impression.

I shot out a gout of flame and made it continue to roll along the ground in the warrior’s direction. She cried as she held up her shield and rushed forward, though it was obvious the heat was burning her skin. She charged and thrust her polearm forward. By that time, however, I had already gotten inside of her weapon’s range, knowing the weakness of her weapon as well as she did.

There was a look of comprehension at her own failure just before I brought my sword clean through her eye and into the back of her head. Her body twitched a moment before I pulled back and if crumpled to the ground.

I turned where the mer was behind the rock and motioned for her to run, while I checked we were not being followed.

But we were. I spotted the two others at a distance and saw the bow raised. I teleported behind a rock, then forward again. I ripped the bow from the mercenary’s hand and thanked Mephala for giving me such knowledge of killing techniques. For the man, unarmed, was able to strike out at me with his fists. I formed a ball of fire around him and collapsed it onto him, just in time for his companion to level their axe at my head.

I slid down to my knees as the axe came clean across the other mercenary’s chest. I slashed at the back of the ankles as I rolled to the side, watching the massive, muscular form of my assailant go suddenly to their knees. Then I thrust both blades down underneath of the arm pits, and the body slumped forward.

I could hear the groans and struggle of people who would not live much longer, but I needed them to be silenced and I cast my webs around all their faces. If they suffocated, all the faster a release from their pain.

Entering the cave, I saw the mer had made herself a fire and was warming her hands. She asked me, sarcastically about her luxury accommodations and I told her that certainly I had worse myself out in the field. She introduced herself as Veya Releth and asked me about where I had learned all my fighting techniques and if I was a mage.

I told her it was a complicated sort of story and that she no doubt needed to hear more about her family than some old mer’s life story. Her disappointment evident, I told her I would tell her later or she could ask Naryu about how we met and that seemed to suffice.

I explained what I had read in the registry and that Naryu had been trying to find out more information. I even mentioned overhearing that he killed one of his own, but that I had not heard exactly what had happened or who he had killed the person for.

She seemed as incredulous as Naryu about the whole affair, talking through it aloud to try and make sense of it all. I wished that I had had some sort of answers for her, but I knew so little of the situation, I am afraid that I was of little help.

It was not much longer before Naryu appeared. She told Veya to pack up quick, the House guard and the mercenaries were marching on the cave and would be there any moment.

As Veya gathered her precious few things, I turned to Naryu and asked her what our plan of egress was. She said we would take the back tunnels, I should go with Veya and keep her safe while Naryu made sure to slow them down as much as possible. Then we would meet at a particular hill to plan our next moves.

I nodded and told her not to make a repeat of the incident in Hei Halai. She shot me a look of warning and told me I had promised never to bring that incident up. I laughed and blew her a kiss before heading off after Veya.

The tunnels were long and winding and had more than a couple of dreugh that we had to hack our way through.

When at last we came out, we looked down to see a group of House Redoran’s soldiers, their captain, and several of the mercenaries, alongside a clear councilmer of House Redoran.

Veya cursed her luck and said her father was going to ruin everything before she even had a chance to learn the truth. I told her not to worry, I could handle this with a distraction enough to let her escape.

She seemed surprised I would do such a thing, but also doubted that I would be able to do anything, no matter how good I was earlier, when there were so many soldiers there.

I told her that I could be so very persuasive if I wished to be and that no matter what happened, she should not worry about me, but make her escape as she had planned to do with Naryu as a contingency before. I would keep her secret.

She looked skeptical, but agreed.

I went up to the ledge and shrieked. Which got everyone’s attention. I made such a racket I do not think anyone even in Balmora might have missed it.

The captain yelled up at me about what I was doing up there.

I told him I had been chased by strange warriors and that I had run when they tried to attack me. There was an exchange of looks between the captain and that councilor. 

Working myself up to a greater fury, I announced myself as part of House Indoril, making a pilgrimage to the Temples of Vvardenfell as part of my year of spiritual enlightenment and demanded that someone help me to get down.

The councilor demanded my name and rank and I provided it in the true Dunmeri fashion going back eighteen generations and was promptly cut off as two of the House soldiers were bade to go and collect me.

I had a brief talk with the Councilor where he apologized and said that they had been looking for his daughter who had run away.

I played the part of someone very sympathetic and offered to help in any way that I could, since our Houses were so closely aligned. He thanked me.

The captain began to demand answers about why I had not disclosed my identity when I saw him. I turned to the councilor as though this was a breech of propriety and I was aghast that he had addressed me so informally.

The councilmer apologized and said that their soldiers were more straightforward than most and stood on less ceremony than perhaps I was used to, but asked if I would not answer the captain’s questions. I drew my robes closer around me and said that I had said nothing because the mer had a brutish look about him and I did not want to risk being attacked by bandits.

Oh, that sure got a stir of emotions from the captain, who was about to say more. But I turned back to the councilmer and asked if there was anything to be done. He replied that there was a report of his daughter being spotted out here and asked if I had seen anything.

I told him I had seen a young woman with silver hair running south east while I was in the swamp, not twenty minutes before I was accosted by the savages out in the swamp.

It hurts to play into the horrible things that my people call the other races, but I had to sell my role regardless, so I did what I had to.

In the end, the majority of the forces headed off in the direction I pointed and the councilor invited me back for a meal as an apology. It was an awkward sort of affair, but I did not let my emotions show. I played up myself as one deeply spiritual and deeply committed to the traditions, the very picture of Indoril sensibilities.

It was awful. But I play a good part when I must.

In the end I excused myself before I overstayed my welcome and headed off to the next shrine, given many dire warnings about the dangers of the barbaric Ashlanders along the road north. It was clear from the description that these were a Zainab group and I made note that they must have moved south west from their usual camp in the area near Vos. I figured that meeting them would be my next step, since I was charged to meet with any Velothi group I could.

With great effort, I held my tongue and cheerfully thanked Council Eris for his wisdom and help. And I promised him a return of hospitality next time he came to Mournhold. 

I am finishing up a tall bottle of wine before I go to meet them up. Killing works up such a thirst.

[k7l4d4]

Midnight Striga: Fairy Tail/Owl House Cross Fic Episode 5 Part 8

Here is the next chapter to Midnight Striga. I hope you all enjoy it. Thank you.

Lilith was lost in the haze of memories. It was understandable, really, when you took into account what had happened. Her sister, who she had steadfastly looked down upon and seen as inferior in terms of ability and power, doubly so when counting her curse, had utterly dominated her in a Witch’s Duel, publicly solidifying her place as greater than the head of the Emperor’s Coven. Greater than Lilith. It was a bitter pill to swallow, one she’d been denying for years.

It was funny, really, how much of a farce it all was; the illusion that she was a great and powerful witch. Oh Lilith was certainly strong, that was without question! But she was so far from being her sister’s equal that it was anything but funny, by itself. Each and every fight, every confrontation, looking back, they always ended the same. Edalyn would show up, causing trouble as she pleased, and when Lilith arrived to confront her, they briefly battled, Eda cracking jokes and being witty, before pulling a stunt at the last minute to escape. In none of those conflicts had Eda ever shown serious effort or treated their battles as anything other than a way to pass the time or a chore to work around.

Eda may not have held back against Lilith, but she had never once seriously fought Lilith in all her years in the Emperor’s Coven; each fight was nothing more than Lilith attempting to sooth her own ego, and Eda indulging her because she could. It was sobering, to realize that you were so small. Muffled screams echoed in her ears, but she paid them no mind. Edalyn was there, clearly she could take care of it, and not a weak failure like herself.

Better to sink into the veil of her memories, where she could do no harm.

“So, why do you want to join the Emperor’s Coven?” “Isn’t it obvious? Because I’ll be able to help people, of course! I could do so much to make the world a better place!” “Heh, good luck with that!”

“There is only one opening for the Emperor’s Coven, you two will have to fight for it.” “”WHAT!?””

“No! I refuse to battle my own sister! I’ve decided covens aren’t really my style. Hey, don’t forget about me when you're a big shot, sis.”

Even her own memories conspired to reveal what a fool she was. Even back then, Eda would’ve never challenged her, her sole motive for joining the Emperor’s Coven being to support Lilith and retain her magic, nothing more. The curse was pointless, nothing but the petty jealousy of a child. She still was a child, in the end, a stupid, spoiled, beligerent child who refuses to accept their flaws for what they are.

“Gah!”

Was that Edalyn? No, surely not, nothing on the Isle, bar Belos, could challenge her, not truly, of that she no longer had any doubts. But, what if…?

“I do what I want to do, nothing more… nothing less…!”

 Lilith paused in her thoughts, forcing herself to focus on the present. Screaming, laughing, explosions and fire, echoing all around her.

“But for all that I hate Bonehead… I love the Isles… and the people who call it home…!”

 Lilith winced at the sheer volume of it all. Taking a deep, slow breath, she tried again, tugging at her senses, pushing herself to the surface of her mind.

“So if you think I’m just going to stand back… and let you kill people because you feel like it… then you’re even crazier than you look!!”

Her eyes snapped open. They flew across the stands, her already pale skin dropping in palor at the horror surrounding her. Death, injury, and suffering. Witches, Demons and Witchlings battling for their lives. Where were her subordinates, where were the guards!? ...Where was Edalyn?

Lilith’s head snapped to the side, eyes widening at what she saw, and what she heard.

“Even if I die, I’ll have died fighting for my freedom. Give it your best shot, you two-bit bully.”

Edalyn, held in ice-clad hands by the throat, her captor rearing back a fist filled with jagged ice, ready to run her through. This. Would not. STAND.

As the stranger lunged to attack, Lilith sprung, her staff intercepting the blow. Staring into eyes as cold and blank as death itself, she hissed out. “Stay. Away. From my sister.”

“Ah, so the prodigal daughter comes to challenge her betters.” Reticulus hissed, amusement coloring his voice. “I see you conquered the tests I sent your way without issue!”

“Tests?” Willow said, voice hushed. “YOU CALL ALL OF THOSE ATROCITIES TESTS!??” She screamed. The look of rage mirrored on her friends’, and Amity’s, faces.

“But of course.” He replied placidly. “Everything I do, I do for the sake of building the most perfect body. So why would I not implement tests to find out who is worthy of joining the art that is my form?” He stated, his tone no different than if he had said that he was breathing, or that he enjoyed food. He turned to Luz, amusement dancing in his (most likely, if not definitely, stolen) eyes. “Have you come to return yourself to our care again? Or will you offer up your form to join my work in a futile display of resistance?”

Luz paused, glaring in deepset hatred, before doing something that surprised them all. She started laughing, chuckling really. “You know something? I honestly forgot how much of a pretentious piece of shit you were.” She said, her laughter having subsided, lazily cracking her neck, a glow building in her hands. “You were this big bad monster in my memory, this unstoppable thing I could never hope to face. But now? You’re still a monster…”

She leapt into the air, clapping her hands together, palm to fist, to cast. “BUT YOU’RE A MONSTER IN CAN KILL!” She screamed. “Light-Make: Parliament!” A flock of owl constructs ripped through the air, slamming into Reticulus’ body, drawing roars of frustration from the mismatched madman.

“Impudent wretch!” He growled. “Arteriel Assault!” The flesh of his arms rippled and shifted, the arteries in his arms ripping out from his skin, morphing into the shape of gun barrels. Luz’s eyes barely had time to widen as pressurized bullets of blood ripped through the air, her hastily cast shield barely blocking the spray. Turning his gaze to her team, he cast again. “Rib Bunker!” The flesh of his torso peeled back, his ribs shooting forth like homing rockets, each one screaming towards them.

Eyes widening, Amity and Willow quickly called up their defenses, Amity’s Abomination grabbing the ribs from the air in concert with Willow’s vines, Gus covertly casting a layered illusion, just in case. Moving to the offensive, Amity directed her Abomination to tackle Retic’s legs, the oozing form of it entangling the limbs and seeping into the ground, binding it, however crudely. Joining Amity in the attack, Willow summoned her plants, blasting into Reticulus with a barrage of launched thorns and vine-based whip strikes. To their disgust and morbid fascination, Willow’s vines managed to dig into the seams of Reticulus’ stitchings, pulling them open, exposing the muscle and bone beneath.

“How dare you worms harm this form? The culmination of my life’s work!?” He screeched, the flesh of his limbs morphing into a bevy of blades and spears. With a scream of rage, he attacked again, his fury only barely restrained by his desire to see how competent these wretches truly were.

“Yeah, that’s kind of the point, we are trying to kill you, so of course we’re damaging that patchwork of corpses you call a body!!” Luz retorted, another spell building. “Light-Make: Peacock!” An elegant bird crafted from light soared forth, it’s ostentatious form twirling through the air, cutting through the flesh-formed weaponry Reticulus was deploying. As Retic’s attention was drawn by the flashy construct, Luz ran forth, tucking into a slide. As she passed underneath Retic’s legs, she gave a feral grin. “Light-Make: Radiant Durendal!!” The colossal spear ripped upward, slamming into Retic’s groin and torso, prompting the depraved maniac to scream in agony, flying into the air from the force of the blow.

Sliding back, she braced herself for whatever counterattack he cooked up. Willow shouted, summoning a massive vine which latched onto Retic’s leg, slamming him into the ground, a sickening crunch echoing from his body.

“THAT IS ENOUGH!!” He screamed, his body pulsing and swelling in all directions. “Living Corpse Cannon!!” With a horrific shriek of tearing skin and ripping muscle, bloody holes opened all over Reticulus’ body, bone, blood, and extra organs launching with the force of a machine gun every which way. Panting, Reticulus turned around, and burst out laughing. Luz and the others lay broken, bloody, limbs shattered all around him. “THAT IS WHAT YOU FOOLS GET FOR CHALLENGING ME!!!”

“You know, I always regretted how I left Oroboros.” Luz’s voice croaked out.

“Oh?” Reticulus smirked, leaning forward in condescending glee. “Does the wayward doll realize how foolish it was to challenge our whims?”

Luz weakly snorted. “Not hardly, you bastard.” She choked out. “I always regretted… that I wasn’t strong enough to take her away from you all. If I was stronger, braver, maybe I could have saved her, and we’d have both gotten away.”

“Pfft. And the difference between then and now is… what, exactly?” Reticulus mused, leaning close to her broken form.

“This time,” Luz smirked, blood seeping from her lips. “I’m not afraid of dying in the process.” In a burst of light, she and the others exploded, rematerializing ten feet further away, injured for sure, but nowhere near as broken as he had seen, a truly massive light building in Luz’s palms. “And I’ve got friends with me… to stop you!” She shouted, Amity and Willow shifting into action. Amity’s Abomination surged forth, slamming into his legs, holding him fast. Willow’s plants ran up the length of his arms, seizing him and pulling his arms tight and immoble.

“You may be stronger than us.” Amity stated, still composed, even as blood streamed down into her eyes, her left arm visibly dislocated.

“But we just need to hold you still!” Willow grunted, swaying roughly, blood coating her hands, a small trickle flowing from her mouth.

“And I’m using my illusions to get everyone to safety, and away from your goons!” Gus declared, blood leaking from his ear, heavily favoring one of his legs over the other.

“Which means I’ve got all the room I need… to do this!” Luz shouted, the light bursting forth. “Light-Make: Owl Beast!” In a flash, a colossal form burst forth, careening into Reticulus’ mishmash of a body, the force ripping it free from his bindings… but without the bound limbs in question.

“NO! NONONONONONONO!!!” Reticulus screamed, blood streaming from the broken stumps that used to be his arms and lower torso. “YOU CANNOT DO THIS!! I AM RETICULUS CREEVES!! I AM THE MASTER OF FLESH!! THE SHAPER OF FORMS!!! YOU CANNOT CHALLENGE ME!!!” He screamed, raging against the beast that slammed his broken form into the wall, blood splattering with each impact, its talons and beak ripping and tearing away the stolen flesh of his body. As it dug deeper, his screams and protests grew weaker, and weaker, until all the kids could hear… was a whimper.

As the approached the crater that held whatever remained of Reticulus, they peered inside. Their stomachs turned slightly at the sight; all that remained of the vicious Mage was his collar and head, still alive only by the nature of his magic and his sheer stubborn desire to live.

“Any last words?” Luz asked coldly, the pain and rage from her time working with this monster surging back to the forefront.

“Just two.” The head gurgled. His lips twisted into a horrific smile, mocking and hateful. “She… lives…!” He burst into uproarious laughter, hate and madness bleeding through, as Luz froze, images flashing through her mind, tears building in her eyes. It couldn’t be true… it had to be a lie… right!? It probably was… but whether true or false, the bastard had completed his goal when he said the words: he had hurt her at her core. As Luz fell to her knees, the others crying out in worry, she turned to the heavens, tears pouring down her face, and screamed herself hoarse. And then, she knew only darkness.

Staff whirling, Lilith slammed it into her foe’s cranium, grinning in satisfaction as he reeled back in pain. Turning to Eda, she demanded. “What’s happening?”

“Well, nice of you to wake up, Lily,” Eda snarked, before growing serious. “This bastard and his pals burst in, and said they were going to kill everyone. They probably have more in the rest of the Center, but the group they brought with them here is brutal enough.” She said, pointing up to the stands.

Lilith’s retort died in her mouth as she finally gained a clear look at the carnage surrounding them. Over a quarter of the spectators in the stands, including several children, lay dead, with those closest to them encased in ice. Her guards had been brutally butchered, many of them in multiple pieces, some of them melted, others burned to ash, but all of the guards she had brought in with her were dead. On a slightly more positive note, Principal Bump, Titan bless him, was managing to fend off the remaining soldiers this beast of a man had brought with him, directing multiple Abominations to intercept their attacks and retaliate. From what she could tell, he had managed to suffocate and slay at least ten attackers, leaving fourteen remaining.

“We have to stop this.” Lilith breathed out, fear and pain coloring her voice at the horror surrounding them.

“No duh,” Eda deadpanned. She held up a hand as Lilith moved to retort. “I don’t know why you got stuck in your head like that, and I don’t want to know. People who could still be alive right now if you hadn’t are dead because of that. We need to crush this bastard, and then we can go back to hating each other. Deal?”

Lilith bitterly nodded, unable to challenge the point. “Deal.” She turned to their foe, who was building up ice-based armor around himself. “What can you tell me about him?”

“He calls himself Rudolph, uses something called Frost Magic; if you touch it, it clings to you, saps your strength and your magic. I’m almost spent. We have to finish this fast.” Eda said gravely.

“Then you focus on offense.” Lilith stated clearly, twirling her staff. “And I shall focus on defense. Acceptable?”

“Perfectly.” Eda grinned. Nodding to each other, they lunged for their foe, Rudolph screaming in anger as bolts of ice ripped out from his armor.

“You fools cannot stop my symphony of death!” He cried, blades and spines bursting forth from his armor and the ground. Moving quickly, Lilith threw up her barrier, absorbing the blows. Smirking, Eda jumped into the air, a ball of flame forming. With a shout, she threw it, cheering as his armor was forced to absorb the blow. “You dare play games with me!?” He thrust his arm forward, a spear of ice ripping towards Eda.

“I said stay away!” Lilith shouted, whipping her staff upward. A bolt of magic crashed into the spear, changing its trajectory rather severely. The spear went careening, crashing through two of the attackers. 12 left.

“Maybe you shouldn’t have gone big with yourself, eh Frosty?” Eda joked, spinning her staff against the ground, a massive tube in Hooty’s image (a recurring nightmare of Lilith’s actually) ripping out of the ground.

“What the hell!?” Rudolph shouted in baffled rage, the spell forcibly wrapping around his armor, and constricting, drawing a roar of pain from the sadistic Mage. Eda lunged again, summoning bolts of flame to blast into the armor, craters appearing at each collision, with Lilith adding her lightning to stun the armor and draw a few more screams out of Rudolph.

Sharing a glance, the sisters nodded, pulling their staffs back. With a furious cry, the two launched their spears into the armor, shattering it, Rudolph plunging to the ground, a disgusting crack sounding upon his landing, followed by a pained scream. Crawling out of the crater formed by his landing, mad rage filling his eyes, Rudolph attacked. “Winter Spray!” He cried, launching multiple bolts of ice at the two witches. Eyes narrowed, Lilith intercepted, expertly deflecting each bolt into the crowd, each bolt driving through the bodies of one of Rudolph’s followers. The attackers now numbered 4.

Seeing that their attackers had shrunk considerably, the crowd rallied, dogpiling on the remaining Mages, magic being called up to hold them.

“No!” Rudolph yelled. “This shouldn’t be happening! You are supposed to be weak, helpless! We are the powerful, the strong! We are supposed to dominate!!” His ranting was cut off by Eda clocking the raving Mage across the head, the image of him killing that child from before so casually flashing before her eyes.

“Dominate that, you psychotic asshole.” She growled.

“Oh, Edalyn.” Lilith sighed.

[writer-and-artist27]

One Lostbelt King to Another

Summary: Scathach-Skadi came from a world that never saw an end and Humanity’s last hope dying alone. To see one of the creators of said worlds discard the Yaga as nothing while baiting a little one into becoming a murderer, she cannot stand for it. Not when said little one gave Skadi another meaning to the word “love.”

------------------------------

Note: Inspired by this comic and how Skadi came to my Chaldea back in Epic of Remnant. Roughly based on my experience going into the Grand Battle of Lostbelt 1, where Skadi and Achilles were the front-liners on my team to beat Anastasia, well... Writing this felt good.

And, hey, since I’m publishing this just when I finished Lostbelt 2 and finally ascended Skadi to her final form, I’d like to think this is a small thank you to the purple-haired Caster who came to Chaldea when she was needed the most. This is also based off of a headcanon that Leo had given me once, where my Skadi came to me before any version of me encountered the Lostbelts, so she saw a doomed future. Thus, this story happens.

For those not in the know, this oneshot is a distant sequel to all my previous Fate/Grand Order works, and giant spoiler warning for the ending of Lostbelt 1 and certain plot elements of Lostbelt 2. 

Dedicated to @withanina​, who’s seen me through my own journey in this very tumultuous mobile game. 

------------------------------

Patxi had fallen first, his snout buried in the snow and a smile stuck to his dead face. Blood was already staining the white snow red, and no one said anything except for the occasional sob from the Chaldean Master. 

It would’ve been the perfect time to strike.

But before anyone could say anything, a rune was already writing itself into the cold Russian air. Kadoc could faintly make out the purple shimmer that read destruction before Anastasia was being thrown back, and he felt himself scream before he could hear it.

“ANASTASIA!” 

He didn’t realize how painful it was to hold up his Command Spells for supporting his Servant until she appeared with a gust of cold wind in front of Humanity’s last Master.

It was supposed to be impossible.

Vy, a simple foolish girl who shouldn’t have amounted to anything, shouldn’t have had that Servant come to her aid. That Servant should have been in Ophelia’s Lostbelt over in Scandinavia. Not in Russia, not here. She shouldn’t have been helping a girl who was fighting for Proper Human History.

“You…” Anastasia was just as shocked too, if her wide eyes were any indication. “You are a Lostbelt King. You shouldn’t be here.”

Scathach-Skadi simply brushed some snow off her purple dress as Vy slowly stood up from her knees, tears in her eyes. “Skadi…sama?”

“Either I have lost my hearing or I must have heard something insignificant. Nonetheless, I am here.” Skadi turned her back on them and Kadoc grit his teeth. She was — she was underestimating Anastasia. She was underestimating him, Kadoc Zemlupus, as an opponent in favor of focusing on the weaker, crybaby Master. What was going on here? Why was she— 

Mash Kyrielight let out a shaky breath. “Skadi-san, you—” 

Skadi sighed. “Hm. You seem to have found yourself in another troubling situation, little one. Your shield maiden has certainly grown tired.” No one in the cold area missed how the Lostbelt Servant’s voice softened in Vy’s direction as she brushed her ponytail back past her shoulders. “Allow me to help you once more, especially in defeating an insect who dares call herself a Tsar.” 

“Insect...!?” Kadoc could see Anastasia bristle before he could feel it in his hands through her shoulders, and she clutched Viy to her chest. “How dare you call me an insect! You shouldn’t be fighting for Proper Human History!” 

“You certainly act like an insect, along with your pitiful sight of a Master, Tsaritza.” Skadi sighed again, reaching out to Vy with one hand to help bring her back to her feet and steady her. “How very much like a mere rat to not even know what you have follied in. To know I share a former title with you is now a burden of shame on my shoulders that I feel the great need to brush away.” Skadi then shook her head. The motion was almost like a mother disappointed with her child. “Who I side with is none of your business.”

Great. Another nutcase in Vy’s favor. 

A single tear rolled down Vy’s cheek as she continued to stare up at the Servant in front of her. What a fool. “Um… Skadi-sama?”

“Not that honorific, little one,” Skadi said without skipping a beat, briefly turning around to press one gentle hand against Vy’s head, patting her hair. Her voice had softened all over again. “‘-san’ is sufficient. ‘Skadi-san.’ Otherwise, please do not force yourself any more. You have done enough for now.”

“But— But I—” 

Kadoc felt himself go silent once Skadi reached over to press a soft kiss to the top of Vy’s hair. Kyrielight gasped, Kadoc felt bile start to climb up his throat. What the fuck am I seeing right now? 

Anastasia hugged Viy tighter to herself once Skadi stepped back, and by then, Kadoc could clearly make out the horrible, ugly red that stained Vy’s cheeks. “Sk-Skadi-san?”

“Good child. Now stand back.” The Lostbelt Servant smiled before slowly turning to meet Kadoc’s eyes. And, for the first time in his life, Kadoc felt a shiver travel up his spine. “I will handle this.”

If there was a descriptor for “godly bloodlust,” then perhaps the dictionaries in Lostbelt histories should have included Scathach-Skadi’s name. 

“You vile Crypter,” Skadi whispered vehemently, raising her wand. “How dare you traumatize one of my children and give so many others false hope.”

“False? How is it false when—”

“It is false when these lines of history are doomed to die, vermin,” Skadi hissed. Without a single ounce of hesitation, Skadi then pushed her ponytail back to write another rune in the air, clearly one that was Primordial, and Kadoc raised his hand without thinking. “To give the people of these Lostbelts false hope of living alone in victory is a crime deserving of divine punishment. You made all of us think we could live again in a miracle. But no. We were all doomed from the very beginning, even if the Trees of Emptiness grew, and you dared to make us believe that we could survive. You deserve far more than divine punishment.” 

Kadoc wasn’t expecting the newly made rune to go to Vy and Kyrielight of all people. He should’ve expected it, but for some reason, his legs couldn’t move. The Ortinax armor glowed a soft purple hue, accentuating the shock in Kyrielight’s eyes transforming into grim, fierce determination as she then ran to place her shield in front of her silent Master. “Senpai, please stay behind me. Everything will be alright, I-I promise. I’m here.” Kyrielight then threw her head towards the towering purple-haired Caster. “Skadi-san?”

“Shield maiden, protect the little one for me,” Skadi said softly, shaking her head. Her wand was raised, poised to write in the air again. “I have some insects I must swat.”

“R-Roger that, Skadi-san!” 

“…I don’t understand. My Master is doing the right thing in trying to raise the Tree of Emptiness and expanding our Russian Lostbelt. You should know this since you are — were a Lostbelt Servant, Scathach-Skadi.” Anastasia said finally, narrowing her eyes at the opposing queen. “You should know just as well as I do of the responsibility that comes with trying to prevail with our worlds.”

“Do not call me by that title when I have already lost my world,” Skadi snapped darkly, and this time, Anastasia stopped. Kadoc felt his blood freeze too because the Russian air seemed all the more colder. What did she just say? “I lost my subjects — my people, my Scandinavia — no thanks to you insects. Surtr destroyed everything with his flames and you Crypters did not even care in my reality. You left me — all of us — to die.” Skadi shook her head, waving her free hand to create the beginnings of a giant icicle behind her. “It was only when I lost everything to the flames that I found another chance. It was through my folly that I found this little one in the wreckage of Chaldea.” 

This time, Skadi didn’t turn back to meet Vy’s eyes. The fighting stance Skadi was in didn’t allow for that. Kadoc could easily read the emotions on Vy’s face, from the awe to surprise to tired resignation, and even then, there was a touched glimmer in those brown eyes behind the long brown hair and black glasses that had him reeling. 

“I had thought that I knew what it meant to love in that miracle of my Scandinavia. To kill and to love. But I was wrong. You all were wrong.” Skadi nodded to herself, closing her eyes as she turned back to face the battlefield. She pressed her free hand to her chest. “Love is to care for others outside of yourself. Love is asking what one can do to help, even when you are weak and unsure. Love is enjoying every day of life as it comes in the world. Love is—”

Selfless. 

“Love is making sea-salt ice cream together and laughing over the failures,” Skadi finished.

Kadoc blinked. Anastasia did too, lowering Viy. “…What?”

“Of course you two wouldn’t understand. You gave up your humanity just to make this long journey to validate your own selves. How pitiful.” Skadi wrote another few runes in the air with her wand, the purple glow accentuating the glare in her violet red eyes. The giant icicle behind her head seemed to grow all the more massive. “Making a nightmare of others’ lives, killing more than 7 billion people in reality, and then villainizing the one girl who is trying to give a form of salvation to all living this hell? Disgusting. Not even worth my time and love.” 

Kadoc bit the inside of his cheek enough to taste metal. “Why you—”

“That is enough, Skadi. Even if you are a former Lostbelt Servant, I will not tolerate you insulting my Master,” Anastasia interrupted, brushing her cape behind her. Viy was already emitting a dark aura. “You will all die here.”

“No,” Skadi smiled for the first time Kadoc had seen, and Kadoc grit his teeth once his eyes suddenly focused in on the green hair and orange scarf hovering behind the purple-haired mage. No way. “You both will perish under my heel. I am not the only one here to put you out of your misery.” 

No way.

Vy wasn’t supposed to be able to summon Heroic Spirits bordering on the powers of Gods. She wasn’t strong enough. 

So then— 

“Both our heels,” Achilles of Greece suddenly interrupted, and with that green spear shouldered between his neck and shining gold armor, the smirk on his face matched Skadi’s smile as he raised one fist in the air towards Kadoc’s direction. “Because you two did something worse than give people false hope.”

“Indeed, famous Hero of the Trojan War,” Skadi hummed, the Runes in front of her immediately flying over to the allied Rider, “they follied more than they thought.”

Achilles rolled his eyes, lightly elbowing Skadi in the side once the Runes stuck to his chest armor and disappeared, and Kadoc couldn’t believe his eyes. These two Servants — they were familiar? A Lostbelt Servant and a weak Servant from Proper Human History — they could be friendly? “Cut the cutesy language, Skadi. We know what we have to do.”

Vy gripped her hands behind all the Servants as her Command Spells glowed against her black Mystic Code, tears still in her eyes. 

“Of course. May you take the first blood, Achilles?” Skadi said softly. “Teach these insects how they could not have prevented the Incineration of Humanity with their follies.”

“Sure.” Achilles then grinned and leapt forward, and Kadoc found himself yelling out once the back end of that same green spear was nearly in his face if not for Anastasia. “You two jerks have a lot to answer for, y’know.” The words were said casually, almost too casually when considering the amount of strength being used to handle the spear so close to Kadoc’s person and Anastasia’s pained grunts under the weight. 

“I-I have no idea what you are prattling about, Hero,” Anastasia growled. “Viy—” 

“Oh? I’m wounded, miss Tsar.” Achilles then kicked Anastasia hard and Kadoc felt himself flying too once Anastasia collided with him. If not for the Russian winds and dodging the sudden ice projectile coming towards him, he might not have heard it.

“You hurt our Master. Our kind, workaholic Master who should’ve rested back at home with her family once Goetia disappeared. But instead of helping her, you took her home away from home in Chaldea and hurt Mash by killing the only familial figure she had left. So, what happens after this is simple.” Kadoc clutched Anastasia to his chest once they landed in the snow. Achilles then put his fingers in his mouth and whistled. Kadoc could feel the blood start to rush to his head once that chariot came with the fanfare of loud green lightning and horse neighing.

Noble Phantasm. Shit.

“You hurt our family, you die.” 

------------------------------

[Image Description: A screenshot of a team lineup in Fate/Grand Order, simply titled “Front Line.” The Servants in the lineup include, from left to right: Scathach Skadi, Achilles, Marie Antoinette, Chevalier d’Eon, and Mash Kyrielight in her Ortinax costume. End Description.]

This is the least I can do for the Servants who helped me through some of the hardest fights I’ve had emotionally. This isn’t a full replication of the team I used when going into fighting Kadoc and Anastasia, but the main players of Skadi, Mash, and Achilles are here at least. 

Let’s go save the world, everyone. Thank you for staying.

[lavendermilkandhoney]

13/22 The Tower – Arasaka Tower & Konpeki Plaza ?

In Game

The Tower is an omen of radical change, chaos and destruction. The lightning striking The Tower signifies a return to the old order that lies buried under the ruins, and a new order that will rise from it. It is a symbol of tragedy, apocalypse, and self-destruction.

Location

You will find this mural on a wall of a walkway underneath Arasaka Tower in Corpo Plaza.

Misty’s Reading (After the Heist 2/2) - Upright

“You and everyone around you will experience a great shock. When the tower falls, nothing will be the same again. Nothing at all.”

In Tarot

UPRIGHT: Sudden change, upheaval, chaos, revelation, awakening

REVERSED: Personal transformation, fear of change, averting disaster

The Tower shows a tall tower perched on the top of a rocky mountain. Lightning strikes set the building alight, and two people leap from the windows, head first and arms outstretched. It is a scene of chaos and destruction.

The Tower itself is a solid structure, but because it has been built on shaky foundations, it only takes one bolt of lightning to bring it down. It represents ambitions and goals made on false premises.

The lightning represents a sudden surge of energy and insight that leads to a break-through or revelation. It enters via the top of the building and knocks off the crown, symbolising energy flowing down from the Universe, through the crown chakra. The people are desperate to escape from the burning building, not knowing what awaits them as they fall. Around them are 22 flames, representing the 12 signs of the zodiac and 10 points of the Tree of Life, suggesting that even in times of disaster, there is always divine intervention.

Upright

When the Tower card appears in a Tarot reading, expect the unexpected – massive change, upheaval, destruction and chaos. It may be a divorce, death of a loved one, financial failure, health problems, natural disaster, job loss or any event that shakes you to your core, affecting you spiritually, mentally and physically. There’s no escaping it. Change is here to tear things up, create chaos and destroy everything in its path (but trust me, it’s for your Highest Good).

Just when you think you’re safe and comfortable, a Tower moment hits and throws you for a loop. A lightning bolt of clarity and insight cuts through the lies and illusions you have been telling yourself, and now the truth comes to light. Your world may come crashing down before you, in ways you could never have imagined as you realise that you have been building your life on unstable foundations – false assumptions, mistruths, illusions, blatant lies, and so on. Everything you thought to be true has turned on its head. You are now questioning what is real and what is not; what you can rely upon and what you cannot trust. This can be very confusing and disorienting, especially when your core belief systems are challenged. But over time, you will come to see that your original beliefs were built on a false understanding, and your new belief systems are more representative of reality.

The best way forward is to let this structure self-destruct so you can re-build and re-focus. And let’s be real – with a card like the Tower, you have no choice but to surrender to the destruction and chaos, no matter how unwanted or painful. Change on this deep level is hard, but you need to trust that life is happening FOR you, not TO you and this is all for a reason. This destruction will allow new growth to emerge and your soul can evolve.

After a Tower experience, you will grow stronger, wiser and more resilient as you develop a new perspective on life you did not even know existed. These moments are necessary for your spiritual growth and enlightenment, and truth and honesty will bring about a positive change, even if you experience pain and anxiety throughout the process.

Thankfully, the Tower doesn’t always associate with pain and turmoil. If you are highly aware and in tune with your inner guidance system, then this Tarot card can indicate a spiritual awakening or revelation. You may be able to see the cracks forming and take action before the whole structure comes tumbling down. You may create a massive transformation before you reach the point where change is your only option. In its most positive form, the Tower card is your opportunity to break free from the old ways of thinking that have been holding you back.

Reversed

The Tower reversed suggests that you are undergoing a significant personal transformation and upheaval. This differs from the experience of the upright Tower where the change is often because of external circumstances and may even feel forced upon you. Instead, with the reversed Tower card, you are instigating the change and calling into question your fundamental belief systems, values, purpose and meaning. You may go through a spiritual awakening as you discover a new spiritual path. You may change your beliefs and opinions about important topics, realising that you can no longer support older models. Or, in more dramatic cases, you may go through an existential crisis where you seriously question your life’s purpose. While this can be an unsettling time, trust in the process and know it is for the best. You are creating change and transformation so you can step into a new and evolved version of yourself.

At times, the reversed Tower can be a sign that you are resisting change and delaying the necessary destruction and upheaval. You may be in denial that change is occurring. Or you may be clinging to an old belief system even though you know they are no longer relevant or healthy for you. As much as you don’t want to, you need to go through this difficult time to learn a valuable lesson and make progress in your life. And know that if you continue to resist this change, it will only force its way into your life even more. The growth and transformation that the Tower card brings are inevitable. No amount of hiding or denying will make it go away, and it will only get louder with potentially greater upheaval.

Finally, the reversal of the Tower can reduce the impact of the change about to enter your life, particularly if you are tuned in to your intuition. You may be forewarned or have an intuitive sense that something big is about to happen, and you can plan ahead to avoid (or minimise) the destruction that lies ahead.

---

Thank you so much @cybervesna​ for the polish traduction from the official guide book and its associations with the characters!

[ouyangzizhensdad]

Maybe it's just me but somethings they left for the novel fandom to fill in the blanks, they never expected the drama to hit it big as it did... the why he got punished is one of those things. Something that makes me confused is the difference between how western fans perceive the novel/show and how eastern fans do, for example lqr gets hate in western fandom and most asian fandom doest really like jc. Lqr was afraid for his nephew and he accepts his nephew even when he messed up, wht did jc do

It is fine and swell to leave little Easter eggs for fans of the original work, but if the CQL production team deliberately chose to leave things unexplained and excused it by thinking that people would just “fill the gaps” with book canon, they failed at doing their jobs. An adaptation needs to be able to exist on its own as a separate piece of fiction, and should not rely on the viewership having read another text to be intelligible. I personally find it more damning to suggest that the CQL production willingly decided to leave gaps in their storytelling to be explained by novel canon than to suggest that they were not able to reconcile what needed to be taken out for censorship reasons, what they decided to take out by reworking the timeline and the narrative (in other words, due to them taking creative liberties) and what they choose to add to connect it all back together. Failure in the execution is a lot more excusable than not understanding the brief you’ve been given. 

I think also that even trying to fill the “gaps” with the novel canon ends up creating more puzzles. You mention the punishment: trying to make sense of why LWJ gets punished in CQL by invoking the novel canon only brings up more confusion, because in the novel he’s no so much punished for protecting WWX but for harming 33 of his elders in the process--which is why he receives 33 strikes in spite of the fact that this is an unusually cruel punishment that could have left him at death’s door if his cultivation level had been weaker. Trying to apply that same logic to CQL does not work: are we supposed to understand that LWJ harmed 300 of his fellow sect members? But why would he have done so, if WWX was already dead? Were there 300 Lan cultivators killed/hurt because of the YLLZ, and LWJ is forced to bear the burden of responsibility for them because he associated with evil? It’s like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. 

It is unavoidable that fans from different parts of the world would interpret the text differently. CQL and MDZS, ultimately, were written with a specific audience in mind, and the storytelling short-hands and cultural short-hands they use are leveraged with a specific cultural knowledge in mind. Texts are always in dialogue with other texts (intertextuality), which is how concepts like “genres” and “conventions” and “tropes” and “clichés” can emerge. However, even when the process of interpretation is disrupted due to a lack of relevant knowledge, we still construct meaning out of the text, although in this case it is likely to diverge more significantly from what had been intended. 

As well, audiences come to a text with different understandings of morality, or what constitutes right or wrong behaviours, which often comes into play wrt whether people like or do not like a character. In the West, and especially on EN-language tumblr imo, people seem to hold a very rigid and idealistic visions of what is a good parent or caretaker (ie. all those posts saying people who complain about having to take care of their kids 24/7 during a pandemic were bad parents who should have never have had kids in the first plce for daring to complain, with no understanding of or empathy for the toll it takes to not only care for children whose lives have been disrupted and who have been deprived of their other opportunities to socialise at a stage where it is so incredibly crucial for their development, but the toll of caring for children while having to work and/or juggle the stresses and unknowns of a global pandemic, massive job losses, possible evictions, etc.). 

Now, though, I’m interested in knowing why the Asian fandom is less likely to like JC than the western fandom. Any thoughts on this?

[scrapironflotilla]

Anzac is so much more than Gallipoli

Another Anzac day has come around and with the lock-downs and global pandemic it seemed like it would be different. But having a listen to the news or a quick scroll through the other blue hellsite, F*c*b**k, it looks like this Anzac Day is more similar than different. The reverence, the mystique and the myths are all still there, with a massive dose of social media self indulgence. So I’ll probably stay away from that today and instead talk about some history.

I don’t have a favourite aspect of the Anzac legend. I don’t think I even can. The very concept of the Anzac Legend bothers me. This is our recent history. Its members, who have all died, are still within living memory of many millions of people. The events are so well documented that we can follow some of them minute by minute in the diaries, letters and reports created by the participants. I understand the desire to turn these stories into legend and myth, especially in a country like Australia after the war and certainly in the last decades of the 20th century.

I understand how the virtues and values of the AIF made for such fertile imaginative ground in an inter-war world. The romance of war, lost on the battlefields of Europe and the Middle East, was much harder to destroy far away in the colonies, where people experienced little hardship compared to those on the continent.

I understand how and why the AIF became a legend. But I don’t think I can believe in it.

But what does it matter if I believe in it or not? It’s important to tens of millions of Australians and the government tightly controls public commemoration and the Anzac brand. The military indoctrinates its members with to strive for an unattainable Anzac perfection. A newly minted army officer once told me that during his training his instructors had screamed at these cadets, ranting at them about how unworthy they were, how they could never live up to the Anzac reputation and how they could never lead a digger.

It draws hundreds of thousands every 25 April to dawn memorial services across the world, in events whose gravitas and sombre communion even I can’t deny. It’s this secular religion that makes the legend a reality that we have to contend with. The history may vary widely from the myth, but the myth is potent enough and popular enough to be able to divorce itself from the past. “The AIF”, historian Peter Stanley points out, “has become revered as [our] romantic nationalist mystique”.

The last two or three decades has seen a steady dismantling of the Anzac legend, at least in academic circles. All its basic tenets of natural fighting prowess, mate-ship, equality and the rest have been questioned, criticised and reassessed. But this new understanding hasn’t moved far beyond academia. The short spike in Anzac TV series during the centenary showed the same romantic tragedy and nationalist triumphalism. Popular histories from the 50s and 60s were reprinted and a new slew of books turn up on shelves, from children’s books to all kinds of history and dozens of romance novels. The legend remains deeply entrenched in the Australian imagination. Little in the popular realm even attempts to challenge it in light of new understanding. Even for those in academia the revision of that history has produced harsh reaction from the right, I’m exactly one of those “cadre of academics” associated with those elite, Canberra institutions, that noted crank Bendle talks about there. But that’s the strength of this legend. Its followers take any attempt to examine it and broaden it as denigration. Lest anyone think I’m exaggerating here, just have a look at what happened to ABC presenter Yassmin Abdel-Magied after she tweeted the words “LEST.WE.FORGET. (Manus, Nauru, Syria, Palestine...)” on Anzac Day 2017. She was attacked by the press and government ministers and bombarded with rape and death threats. There’s no doubt much of the faux outrage was inspired by racism and misogyny, but you don’t even need to attack Anzac, but merely recognise that Australia’s history is less than perfect, to be met with a violent, histrionic reaction.

To imagine that the Anzacs were perfect, individually and as a whole, is wilful delusion. They were men and as such fallible. It is no dishonour or disrespect to recognise their humanity in all its complexities. We must know and understand their failures, their embarrassments and their crimes (for they are many and varied) to better place their successes, victories and virtues. To deify them and to force them to represent only what was best, without recognising the fullness of their character, good and bad, robs them of the complexity of their own stories. It robs them of their humanity and us of our history. But while I struggle with the Anzac Legend, I also think there are some little stories that deserve better recognition.

The Anzac mythology upholds a very particular character as representative of the AIF, but little about this legend is uniquely Australian. The language used to express the values, that of the larrikin, the digger and above all else mateship, may be particularly Australian but the values are not. Irreverence and camaraderie are close to universal.

These aren’t values to be denigrated in any way. But they’re representative of most militaries in war. But the AIF did have a character unique to the Australian experience. Much is made of the fact that the AIF was an entirely volunteer organisation. From a population of fewer than five million more than 330,000 men and women served in its ranks between 1914 and 1918. Conscription was put to the people in referenda twice and twice it was defeated. People joined the AIF for the duration of the war. Few pursued careers in the military and although many had prior service it was in the militia, the part time army.

The ranks were filled from the cities, the suburbs and the bush by civilians. Even the officer corps was fleshed out by the professional and middle classes of lawyers, bankers, teachers and the like. These men saw themselves not as regular soldiers, but as civilians in uniform. They saw their role as merely a job, not a calling. They were there to fight the war, to defeat Germany, or the Ottomans, and to go home and back to the farm or the factory.

Australia had one of the strongest trade union and labour movement in the world in the early 20th century. It was the first country to vote a labour government into office and ideas of unionism, collective bargaining and fair work practices were strong in the minds of many working Australians. The language they used and the tactics they employed to deal with the discipline and hierarchy of the military demonstrates just how powerful these beliefs were. Soldiers routinely referred to their officers as their boss, refused orders they thought were unfair and protested their ill treatment by military authorities. They released soldiers imprisoned under field punishment, refused to salute officers and rejected the distinction between officers and other ranks imposed by the British army. They went into clubs, restaurants and hotels set aside of officers, believing strongly that they had the right to drink or eat where they chose.

They took strike action when they felt too much was asked of them, when they were refused rest or when they felt hard done by. When battalions were to be broken up due to lack of replacements in 1918, they mutinied. Refusing orders to disband, they ‘counted out’ senior officers sent to negotiate with them. Counting out consisted of soldiers on parade counting down from ten to one, before shouting a final obscenity at the officer concerned. It was a powerful form of insubordination that humiliated officers when it occurred.

In autumn 1918, after months without leave, Australian battalions took to strike action when they were ordered back into battle. After being promised a fortnight’s rest they were ordered back to the front for an offensive after just a few days. Unhappy troops - veterans, mostly - refused to move. The battalions were well understrength after months of fighting and the men felt they had been lied to, that they had sacrificed enough and that they were being overused. The soldiers took action in the way they knew how. They shot no officers and destroyed no property. For men used to fighting for their rights in the workplace it was natural that they would turn to collective action in trade union style.

(Ex-union organiser and Labor prime minister Billy Hughes, seen here with some of his beloved men. Hughes was a favourite of the Australian troops who dubbed him ‘the Little Digger’)

And so it was in the 15th Brigade, under the command of Harold Elliot. Called Pompey by him men he was a courageous and fatherly figure, both liked and respected by the men under his command. It was his unique character that allowed Pompey to negotiate with his men, although rant and then plead were the words used by diarists, and convince them to follow his orders. Other officers, less well known and less admired by their men failed in similar efforts.

The civilian attitudes made them difficult soldiers to discipline. The standard punishment of the army, called ‘field punishment’ was particularly odious to Australians. Field punishment consisted of being bound to an object, a post or a wagon or gun carriage in the open for a number of hours. Due to the danger of artillery this punishment was not just humiliating but also potentially fatal. Diaries and letters from soldiers are full of stories about field punishment. They usually tell of Australian troops coming across British soldiers undergoing field punishment and freeing them, fighting with guards and military police.

There was a powerful resistance to the dehumanising and anti-individualising aspect of military discipline and authority. The AIF by and large saw themselves as civilians first and soldiers second. They understood the need for discipline and obedience and as more than one Australian noted “we have discipline where it matters”, on the battlefield. But the trappings of military culture and authority were repellent to the Australian working man. Strict obedience to hierarchy and the seemingly pointless requirements of military discipline were not only alien to Australians but went against their own values. Mutual respect was the key to the AIF as most of its officers discovered.

This side of the AIF, the strength of its civilian values is one that ought be remembered and celebrated in Anzac. The ideas from the labour and union movements, the fair go and mutual respect deserve a place alongside mateship and the larrikin as part of Anzac. The men who fought for the eight-hour work day and living wages were the same men who filled the ranks of the AIF and who fill Australian cemeteries in Europe and Turkey.

This is a part of the Anzac story that deserves a better place in our telling of it.