#a symbolic 'you were part of the troops' type thing

[wildstar25]

MiqoMarch Day 08 - Fav. (Side) Job

When she's not running around as Ninja or Summoner , Arsay's next choice is the lance. Being bestowed a source of draconic power by Midgardsormr moments before his slumber, and knowing how to channel the powers of Bahamut with dreadwyrm trance, Arsay's power as a Dragoon rivals that of even the former Azure Dragoon. With that said, she'd much rather use her polearm to hunt monsters.

[originalwinnercheesecake]

What if the KND were also pokemon trainers?

    Here we go again. So I have been getting back into Pokemon lately. One of my favorite things to do now is take cartoons that was a big fan of, and build pokemon teams that I think the character would have, if pokemon existed in their world and if they were trainers. I did several for Disney’s Isekial cartoons, and those were pretty well recived. But when I did Steven universe for Cartoonetwork or “The CN” no one cared. I am not sure if this one will get many likes either. It’s been such a long time since KND ended. But this was one of my favorite shows as a child, and I still consider it one of Cartoonetworks best shows ever. I love Kids Next Door. It was pretty easy to imagine the characters as pokemon trainers, and even if it gets no likes I still really wanted to do this post.

Also since sector V is so close, both a team and friend group, I decided that their group needed a mascot pokemon to show their team connection. Since there is only 2 pokemon that have at least 5 evolutions (only 1 of which is actually cool) I decided to use the Eevee line again. I used it for The Pines family in Gravity Falls, where I matched 7 of its evolutions to the 4 bio Pines family members, and three family friends who were pretty much family. For Sector V since there is 5 of them I am only using Eevee’s first 5 evolutions: Flareon, Jolteon, Vaporeon, Espeon, and Umbreon. Teams are below

Nigel Uno a.k.a Numbuh 1

Espeon: So you are probably expecting me to give Espeon to Numbuh 3 because of its pink coloring right? Nope. Espeon is a psychic type pokemon. With how focused and strong willed Numbuh 1 was, I could see psychis being his favorite pokemon type, and Espeon being a great partner for him.

Hypno and Lunatone: Continuing on my theory of Numbuh 1 and psychic pokemon I am also going to give him a Hypno and a Lunatone. Hypno because it’s level of focus kinda reminds me of Nigel’s. Also it can help people with insomnia, which if I remember Numbah 1 either had or beginning to develop. Lunatone because not only did he love the moonbase but he also really enjoyed space travel missions, *alludes to the series Finale*.

Torchic: At this point I have to stop using just psychics and give Numbuh 1 a more balanced team. He was honestly the hardest one to think up a team for, since so many pokemon are animal based, and if you remember Nigel was kind of an animal hater. Or more specifically he saw pets as “in the way” and would generally be slower to warm up to animals then his teamates. But he grew to love anything that could assist in missions. One such occasion was with the baby chicks that followed them on that one cake stealing mission, and wanted to act as Numbuh 1′s troops. Becuase he bonded so well with them I had to give him a Torchic.

Warturtle: Shades are an important part of numbuh 1′s character. He and his team consider them a symbol for him being a leader (even though to the best of my knowledge none of the other sector leaders were shades). I went to google and typed “pokemon that like to wear sunglasses” and Squirtle came right up. I could see Squirtle’s move pool coming in handy on missions, and Numbah 1 being able to bond very well with the brave and ready to go turtle. But while I wanted to keep his torchic as a cute little chick. I do believe Numbah 1 would be able to evolve a Squirtle at least into a warturtle.

Sceptile: Numbah 1′s team Ace. At this point I noticed I was giving him different starter evolutions and I decided to role with it and give a him a fully evolved grass type as sixth pokemon. Now if we go by rejoins I should give him a Meganium, since chikorita is the Johoto grass starter and Johoto is in between Kanto and Hoenn. But let’s be real Nigel and any version of chikorita’s line would be a disaster together. (Ironically though that would be a pretty good pokemon for his girlfriend Lizzy to use in contests).Also I want him to have the potential to find a mega stone and train a mega evolution. Looking at Grass starters I think it would be the quick, agile, and composed treecko line that would be best suited for our leader here. So Sceptile rounds out his team.

Nigel/Numbah 1′s pokemon team: Espeon, Hypno, Lunatone, Torchic, Warturtle, and Sceptile.

Hogarth (Hoagie) Pennywhistle (P) Gilligan Jr. a.k.a Numbuh 2

Jolteon and Dedenne: Jolteon is gonna be Hoagie’s eevelution. It’s an electric one and he is a mad scientist characters. And while I am getting a bit tired of electric types and mad scientists on my lists I have to acknowledge Jolteon is the best fit for Numbuh 2 out of Eevee’s original 5 starters. Dedenne joins his team too. (It at least is duel electric/fairy type) I am giving him this to represent Joaquin, the little leader hamster that Helps Numbuh 2 test experiments

Scarmory and Yanma: Numbuh 2 is more than just the teams 2x4 technology expert though. He is also the teams pilot, and loves spending time in the air. So he would have to have at least a couple flying pokemon. For Skarmory I wanted hm to have something big enough to fly him and his teammates around. I thought about maybe doing Arodactyle, but honestly a giant scrap metal chicken suits Numbuh 2 and the KND much more than a prehistoric dinosuar. Yanma is similar to his fly-themed jet pack and is used to fly him around personally (Jessie’s was able to lift her, and even if Hoagie is chubby I doubt he weighs more than a full grown women).

An Alolan Grimer: Grimer and Muk (who Hoagie is not ready for yet) are another pokemon I like giving scientist characters (might have something to do with me being an owl house fan), because they are kinda the slimes, and sludges, and base elements of the earth. Also Numbuh 2 was that little boy who loved gross stuff, so a Gimer fits him really well.

I am giving Numbah 2 an Alolan Grimer, as opposed to a regular Kanto grimer for two reasons. One because the dark green color makes it look like boogers, which in the KND are used as personal verification for operatives and power sources for some of their technology. Secondly because I gave Abby a more exotic/regionly diverse team, which I feel makes sense for her. But as revealed in the finale numbuh’s 2&5 get married as adults. Looking back at the show while two don’t seem to have those feelings for each other yet (Well Hoagie does not have those feelings for Abby yet. Abby may be starting to like like Hoagie, but she either does not realize it herself yet, or keeps it a secret from everyone else. Gonna guess the former, because she couldn’t keep her crush on Maurice a secret), you can see hints and suggestions that they will one day sprinkled throughout the show. I wanted to give them a connection through their teams that, like them, was more sublte. So I am giving them both alolan pokemon.

Munchlax: a chubby kiddie with a near unstopable appitite. Gramdma the Stuffem bewere the combined eating power of both Numbuh 2 and Munchlax together.

Hoagie/Numbuh 2′s team: Jolteon, Dedenne, Scarmory, Yanma, Alolan Grimer, Munchlax.

Kuki Sanban A.K.A Numbuh 3

(Note Kuki here was the most fun to make a team for, and honestly the only hard part was having to limit her to just 6. I could for real do another two lists at least for her)

Flareon: Which eevelution will Numbuh 3 get, if Numbuh 1 has the beautiful Espeon? Why Flareon of course! If Kuki were the only operative to get an eevelution the correct one for her would still be Flareon. Flareon is fluffiest one. It’s adorable. Like Numbuh 3 it’s base demeanor and attitude are that of a sweetheart, but if you are dumb enough to make it mad it will set itself and your sorry backside ablaze.

Chimchar: So since Numbah 3 was such an avid collector/protector of rainbow monkey’s, she has to, has to have a colorful monkey pokemon. I picked chimcar because according to cannon her favorite Rainbow monkey is “The Orange Kind (Because it reminds her of Wally)” Plus as stated previously I believe Numbuh 3 would make for a really strong Fire type trainer.

Bannet: Numbuh 3's strongest pokemon. Representative of both ramon4 and Numbuh 3's most important trait: her heart. Bannets are born from discarded toys and love that has been forgotten. Number 3 always believed everyone deserved and needed love, and made it her mission to give it when she could (Ramon4, the mustache “Kitty”, ghost hamsters, and many others). If Numbuh 3 came across a sad and lonely bannet, she would totally catch it just so she could shower it with what it believes is gone. That's who she is.

skunky: for Bradley

Skitty: it's super cute, super sweet, super hyper, and super strong all rolled into one. In my opinion It's the most Kuki Sanban a pokemon there is

Beautifly: Because it is pretty, colorful, and feminine, and there is nothing wrong with being a girly girl. It was trained alongside and is super good pals with Numbuh 4′s Dustops

Kuki/Numbuh 3′s team: Flareon, Chimchar, Bannet, Skunky, Skitty, Beautifly

Wallabe (Wally) Beetles a.k.a Numbuh 4

Vaporeon: Okay so for real Wally got Vaporeon by default. When I decided I should use the first 5 eveelutions a team connection for Sector V the other 4  went right with who they fit best, and Vaporeon and Wally were what was left. When I realized this I at first tried to rationalize switching him and one of his friends partners, or maybe changing the connection. Why would Number 4 have a Vaporeon? It’s a water pokemon and he couldn’t/could barely Swim?... Then it hit me that is exactly why he needs/should have Vaporeon. Water is his big weakness. So a pokemon that could help him in the water would be an integral and invaluable part of his team.

Magikarp: Because he loved Mr. Fishy so much. Plus once he is done raising it and it was ready to evolve, he would then have a giant, raging, serpent to ride around on. It could help him to feel tall. ( Anyone remember Tubezilla?)

Slowpoke: It comes off as a really dim, but grows up to be one of he smartest pokemon there is. This represents how everyone thought Numbuh 4 was a dummy, but as became apparent as he grew up, he was actually a genius. This is the last water pokemon I am giving him. Him having a team that is half water-types was not intentional, but a happy accident. I love it.

Tyrogue and Hawlocha: Numbah 4 was the strongest member of sector v, and the best at battle. So as such he would probably have at least 2 fighting types. I chose to give him both a decked out  T.V. wrestler and  the scrappiest kid pokemon.

Dustops: So I really wanted to do a second, two part, branch evolution with 3x4, and have them raise them together. After looking into different branch evolution I came to the conclusion that I would have to use Beautifly and Dustops (It was them or Huntail and Gorabis). Beautifly works perfectly for Numbuh 3. While Dumbuh 4 would probably initially think butterfly’s are “sissy” Dustops is technically a moth which might be more acceptable. Exspecally since it is a poison type with a scary face pattern on its wings, and again gave him an excuses to spend more one-on-one time training with the girl of his dreams. He would come to love Dustops, no doubt about it.

Wally/Numbuh 4′s team: Vaporeon, Magikarp, Slowpoke, Machop, Hawlocha, Dustops

Abigail (Abby) Lincoln  a.k.a Numbuh 5

(I think I mentioned this in Hoagie’s list, but I am giving Numbuh 5 a more exotic/regionally diverse team, since she traveled so much on her Candy adventures).

Umbreon: Numbuh 5 gets Umbreon because she was the operative that had the most talent for Night based Missions. Umbreon and Espeon were released in the samegen, and that will have to serve as Numbuh’s 1&5′s connection to each other, as friends and 1st&2nd in command of the team. Originally I wanted to make them the only 2 with Mega evolutions, but it turns out Bannet (whom I refuse to take off Numbuh 3′s team list) can mega evolve, and chimchar and Magickarp will mega evolve at their final forms. Then I tried to give them both shinnies, but the shinnies on numhuh 1′s team did not suit him as well as their regular forms. So by default I am just giving them parallel eeveelutions.

Froakie: Another one for taking on night missions. Wiki says Forakie acts really chill on the outside, but deep down is supper protective and watchful of its closest companions. Numhuh 5 and Froakie are one and the same in that regard, and would no doubt work well as a team. Plus it’s a super cool pokemon, that just gets cooler as it evolves. I love the idea of future Supreme Leader Numbuh 5 having a Grenija with her up on the Moonbase. Galactic KND Beware.

Vanilliuxe: What? This girl is not only super chill; she was candy themed Indiana Jones. She needs at least two ice-type pokemon, and at least 1 candy/sweet pokemon. Unfortunately candy/sweet based pokemon are a rarity (I have elected to ignore slurpuff’s existence). Fortunately the Vanilite pokemon line exists. Ice cream is supposed to be her favorite treat. I am going to give her the Fully evolved form: Xanilliuze. She is the fourth flavor chosen one after all.

An Alolan Sandshrew: Numbuh 5′s second ice type pokemon, her alolan pokemon (As previuosly mentioned that I gave Abby and Hoagie each a, different typed, alolan pokemon; to highlight their friendship and the subtle hints through out the show that they will one day like each other as more), and what is in my opinion her cutest pokemon. 

A hisiun Arcanine: Number 5 said once that she liked dogs, and I think her an Arcanine would get along quite well. Arcanine’s another pokemon that shows off how she see’s herself as a protector to her friends. It’s big enough to carry Number 5 as well as friends/team mates of her’s, and fast enough to make quick, speedy, get aways when needed. I could also see it being very useful on Candy missions . I am giving her a Hisuin one because I really like its design, and to connect with her sister’s favorite pokemon.

Mawile: Rounding out Numbuh 5′s team is Mawile. picked for its trademark “Head gear” if you will, as well as its skills with tricking/deceiving its foes.

Abby/ Numbuh 5′s team: Umbreon, Froakie. Vanilliuxe, An Alolan Sandshrew, A hisiun Arcanine, Mawile.

Notable Background character.

Kids Next Door isn’t all sector V. There are other operatives and former operatives who are now Teen Ninja’s that show up frequently. However given these characters screen time  I will only give them 1-2 pokemon. I am not saying they do not have 6, but  I figure most of theirs would probably stay at their bases, and they would bring their favorite ones on missions away from their areas.

Chad Dickson a.k.a Numbuh 274- 

Has 2 favorite pokemon

Feraligatr and and Monferno: was tempted to take the easy way out and just give the man here and absol (rumored to be but really isn’t), but I have already used Absol a couple other times (Ducktales Lena and The owl House’s Hunter), and Chad here’s character is very different from theirs. Plus I did not go into this just to tack on easy, less creative choices. So I thought more about Chad. He’s a jock; that was true in both his time as a KND operative, as Supreme Leader, and as a Teen Ninja/Double Agent. I google sports based pokemon and discover that there are many pokemon based off famous athletes.

I chose Feraligatr who is based off a pro football player. Football is Chad’s favorite sport, and Feraligatr is a fast, muscled, high powered, and intimidating beast. Infernape is based off a famous boxer. Chad could box well too. But I lowered it down one evolution to a Monferno, to show that there is still more training he could do.

Rachel T McKenzie a.k.a Numbah 362

Venomoth:  Before she took over as Supreme Leader Numbuh 362 was a stealth agent/spy for the KND right? So I wanted to give her a really stealthy, ninja pokemon. At first I was gonna give her Frogadier, and that may have worked okay (her having the evolved form of one of Abby’s pokemon could be a hint to Abby being her successor). But then, when I was re-watching season 1 of Pokemon, I found the episode where Ash goes to challenge the leader at a ninja based gym. The gym leader and his sister used venonat and venomoth a lot. I know that both have super good vision. Venamoth being a flying type could also keep look out and do aerial scouting. Once I read stun spore and sleep powder are in its move pool that was it. Venomoth became the perfect pokemon for a spy agent who does little battling, but lot’s of sneaking around and intel gathering on the enemy.

Richu: One thing I was trying to avoid doing was giving her a team that was similar to Chad’s. After Chad’s “betrayal” on his 13th birthday I cannot imagine the KND would have allowed their next Supreme leader to copy Chad. Besides Rachel is clever enough I do not think she would ever have to. I gave Chad a water type and a fire type pokemon. So I decided to give Rachel an electric pokemon. Once I made that decision Richu was an easy pick. For one it matches the orange and brown stripped sweater she starts wearing in season 2. It is also a strong and clever mouse, and could function as the ears to Venomth’s eyes on her team.

Fanny Fullbright a.k.a Numbah 86

Houndoom and Snubble. So do to her... tough and yappy personality (which yes I know is a shield she puts up due to having what must be the most emotionally difficult role in the KND: having to decommission operatives that age out after years of service) it was a given that she would have dog pokemon. Houndoom is a big, fierce one, that helps her hunt down the operatives that refuse to go without a fight. Or worse, try to leave early and sell the organizations secrets to the enemy. Snubble is still grumpy and tough. But it is also small, and doll like, and could maybe serve as a comfort creature for this girl.

Cree Lincoln, Formerly Numbuh 11, Now high ranking teen Ninja

Has 1 favorite pokemon

 Sneasler: A Hisuian pokemon  (so there is a bit of a connection with both her and her younger sister having Hisuian pokemon). Sneasler is a powerful poison and fighting type which is a combo that suits Cree very well. It’s also very ninja like, scary, and in contrast to weavile (a pack creature) it’s pretty much a loner. If I remember Chad and the other teens often worked as a group. Cree meanwhile would recruit teens to their organization, but was pretty much a soloist in the field.

Patton Drilovsky a.k.a Numbuh 60

Empoleon: Pretty simple. His character is basically that he is in charge of the arctic base; which is probably the second most important KND base next to the Moonbase. Its also in the coldest part of Antarctica. What else would I give him but a giant Emperor penguin pokemon.

Maurice Bramley “Formerly” Numbuh 9

Exacadrill: Maurice is the first undercover KND operative in the Teen Ninja force, that learn about. His character is that he is a mole, so I gave him a giant, powerful mole, steel/ground type mole.

Tommy Gilligan a.k.a The Tommy, formerly numbuh T Probably only has the 1 pokemon

Eevee: Yeah yeah yeah Tommy is like 7, so he is “to young for Pokemon”. Kids younger than 10 had pokemon in the show (looking at you Bonnie). Also he trained at the KND Academy, and that would have advanced his readiness. I am actually giving him an eevee since as numbuh T he is put in sector V, si he would have been given an Eevee. But he quit (in a Hero move) after a day, we’ll say he kept the eevee but did not have a chance to battle and evolve it.

Since Tommy basically goes back to being a weird but typical child afterwards, he never evolves Eevee, he just keeps it as a pet/best friend. When I used Eevolutions for the Pines family I did not have a character I could do the “I do not want to evolve it. I want to just keep training Eevee as it is” trope. But Tommy is a pretty good candidate to do that for in Codename Kids Next Door. 

[thevindicativevordan]

Any thoughts on Rebirth era of Superman?

Short answer is that it brought me back to the character after I had stopped reading, due to an unending stream of low quality crossovers derailing everything. The long answer is more complicated.

Tomasi's Superman run is like a Yin-Yang symbol. First half is all good except for one bad arc. The back half is all terrible except for the finale. First half does a great job of balancing the wholesome family vibes with horror and action to keep the tension high. Yes you got Jon Kent as a cute kid - Jurgens may have been Jon's father but Tomasi was his daddy in terms of fleshing him out, the Jonathan Kent to Jurgens Jor-El - but Tomasi really put the kid through hell. He accidentally kills his own cat with heat vision, and boy were some people butthurt about that. Personally I loved it, events like that sold me on the struggle of raising a kid who has Superman's powers but not Superman's control.

Jon had a lot of fire and spunk to him, not as much of Lois as I liked (I still firmly believe he should be a Spider-Man type shit talker because of Lois, not a "I know you're better than this" like his dad), but him slugging Damian was a hoot. Tomasi's Clark for the most part was fine, he got that Clark could be an angry dude like when Clark was ready to kick Bruce and Damian's asses after they kidnapped Jon, but Tomasi's Clark was usually pretty flat and Jon was the clear main character. The weirdness of Hamilton simmering under the surface that culminated in Black Dawn was great, like Stranger Things before Stranger Things. Kathy and Jon were cute together. Oh and Tomasi writes a great Manchester Black, that scene of Black freezing Supes heat vision midair to light a cig then sending it back in his face? Hilarious! That his master plan involved trying to corrupt Jon into being the Superman he wanted made sense, and fit with the run's focus on Clark attempting to guide his son into becoming a hero.

The bad arc for the first half was Multiplicity, terrible story with boring filler art. I defy any of you to tell me who the big bad of that story was without looking it up. A multiversal Supermen team up should've been one of the standout arcs, but instead it became a precursor to the back half of the run. Whenever Tomasi tried to focus on just Clark, he clearly didn't have much to say, and the whole story ended up as a weird tangent that went nowhere and never amounted to anything.

After Black Dawn however, we got months of boring filler where Supes clashed with Sinestro and went on a vacation to D.C. with Jon and Lois where Tomasi unleashed his inner boomer to complain about kids not respecting the troops enough. Imperius Lex was a lame way to wrap up the SuperLex storyline, that should've come as a result of Lex refusing to accept that there are lines heroes don't cross because his ego won't accept anything bigger than his own wants. What should have unfolded as a slow disillusionment on Lex's part over the limitations being a hero in the Superman mold places on him, instead became a rushed arc where Lex rage quits because Supes doesn't trust him enough. Thankfully the finale was strong, the Bizarroverse arc was great, Tomasi found that balance of humor, wholesomeness, action, and horror right at the end. Scene where Bizarro bails on his son hit hard for me, and all of the Bizarros were funny to read. Issue 45 where the Kents leave Hamilton hit hard even though I was ready for a change.

Jurgens Action meanwhile was mostly mediocre. Only two arcs stand out in my memory, one good, one awful. The good one was the Godslayers arc where Jurgens amusingly did a better job of handling the Civil War 2 premise than his soon-to-be successor Bendis did. A nice story about Supes grappling with his distaste and distrust of Lex vs. his want to believe Lex can actually change. The other arc solidified Jurgens as the worst Zod writer for me, it's the Booster Gold one right before Action 1000. He loves MoS so why the hell does he insist on writing Zod as only being able to scream KNEEL instead of going with the much more nuanced Shannon portrayal? I am a fan of evil family man Zod though, kudos to Jurgens for that. Other big problem is that the Booster Gold arc is all about Gold stopping Supes from going back and changing things because he needs to accept that the past is the past... except when Lois, Jon, and Sam all get killed while Superman is away, then Gold goes back in time and prevents their deaths without any acknowledgement of how hypocritical that is! It's feebly justified by Gold with Supes already giving up so much (which I guess amounts to Gold being ok with time travel changes if the scale is small enough), but come on Jurgens, way to undermine your very own story! Jurgens Lois & Clark mini remains his best post-Triangle Era Superman work imo.

Of the two major crossovers, Super Sons of Tomorrow was awful while Superman Reborn managed the impressive feat of making none of Superman's origins canon (because Johns dragging his feet with Doomsday Clock meant they couldn't recanonize the Legion of Superheroes), but at least Gleason and Mahkne's art was great. Last time Mxy got to play a major role in anything, and I remain amused that Jurgens of all people ended up using Mxy for a similar purpose to what the Superman 2000 crew wanted to do to his era. Man got the last laugh on Morrison, using Mxy to wipe out New 52 Superman until Morrison and PKJ folded some of that era's ideas back in.

By the end Rebirth was in the same spot the New 52 was where I welcomed another change. Some good ideas - namely Jon, Kenan and the Reborn suit (God I miss that suit) - came out of this era and for that I am thankful. But it's not the ideal era for me the way it is for some, and nostalgia has made people forget that it often stumbled in the same way the New 52 did.

[polarisgreenley]

Hogwarts Legacy x D&D - Character Sheets

As someone who is steadily becoming a dice gremlin and habitual note-taker for D&D, I wondered what each of the Hogwarts Legacy characters would be in the D&D fantasy realm.

What fantasy race and class could they be? Subclasses? What are their highest stats, which ones are then dumped? Why did they join the adventuring party? Where and how would you, an adventurer yourself, meet them? Et cetera et cetera.

First up, our resident charming, clever Slytherin... Sebastian Sallow.

For Sebastian, he wouldn’t be completely satisfied if he went full-on into one class, so he would be dual-classing his life. He would see the advantages of dipping one’s toes in more than one thing. Sure, it would take slightly longer to reap the full benefits, but it’ll be worth it.

Race: Half-Elf

Class & Subclass:

Rogue – Swashbuckler

Both Sebastian and Anne have the basic rogue class in common. 

Quick feet, agile and nimble, and able to sneak into places where they shouldn’t be. Their parents were the scholarly types, so they would have to entertain themselves a lot, and one of them was learning little tricks. Sebastian’s first trick was to take a silver coin, make it ‘disappear’ and have it ‘reappear’ behind Anne’s ear. She’d been so overjoyed he started learning more, ergo the roguish start.

The swashbuckler subclass is known for the flashy, showy, bombastic adventuring type (think Captain Jack Sparrow or Robin Hood). He’d gone into fencing and sword-fighting in his youth as an outlet to escape his uncle’s thumb, as well as to learn how to protect Anne after their parents’ death. He knows the footwork like a charm in addition to knowing where to hit where it hurts, and easily could beat out the kids his age.

Over the years, he would train with travelers that happened to be in town, troops that would stay the night, and continually improve. He was also one of the main defenders of their village from anyone who would try to invade their homes.

2. Warlock – Hexblade (pact formed after Anne was cursed)

The term ‘warlock’ gets boxed into the ‘oh, pact with evil demon’ box much too frequently.

According to the D&D Player’s Handbook,

“… many warlocks serve patrons that are not fiendish. Sometimes a traveler in the wilds comes to a strangely beautiful tower, meets its fey lord or lady, and stumbles into a pact without being fully aware of it.”

“Warlocks are driven by an insatiable need for knowledge and power, which compels them into their pacts and shapes their lives. This thirst drives warlocks into their pacts and shapes their later careers as well.”

After Anne was cursed by some unknown origin, Sebastian sought something, anything to lift said curse. One day he searched out into the ruins, further than he’d ever gone before. There, he found a small, silver pendant with a strange spiral symbol and an empty black frame. The moment he picked it up, a woman’s voice came in amidst a dream-like state. She spoke of how she felt his sorrow and the desperation to help his sister. How she understood, because she was once in the same position as he was. He asked her name; she referred to herself as Morganach.

Sebastian entered a pact with Morganach. In exchange for her power so that he can venture beyond the current borders to search for the cure, she had requested that should he be able to land the exacting final blow to any enemies, to use ‘her’ blade so as their sorrows can be alleviated in their final moments of life.

Highest Stat: Charisma 

He has charm oozing out of him; everyone finds him either charming, or affable or relatable in some way. He understands the “How to say X to achieve Y.” He knows exactly who to talk to and how to talk to them, both with people in good standing with society as well as those in the seedy parts of town.

Need information from the quiet guy in the back that looks like he could break you like a toothpick? Give him five minutes and he’ll get his life story for you. Need to sneak into an invitation only upper echelon party for some intel? He knows the organizer and can get them on the list.

But if that fails, he has ten lockpick sets. And a couple bottles of alcohol. You know, backup plans.

Second & Third Stat: Dexterity & Intelligence

Second highest is dexterity; he knows how to fight smart. He can dodge, parry, and do some fancy footwork so that his opponents always miss him.

He fights smart, and knows where and how to position himself in a fight to make it the most advantageous for him and exert the least amount of energy doing so. In fact, he doesn’t need anyone close to back him up in a fight; he prefers the one-on-one battles close up. Makes for better stories that way, though would appreciate a nice spell thrown in for assistance.

(Note: Dexterity does not equal constitution.)

Third is intelligence, which for the classes would not be the ‘best’ stat, but in-line with his background. He’s the one laying down the plans, where the traps are, who to talk to so the operation runs smooth. Or if it doesn’t, there’s at least three half-plans to fall back onto.

Dump stat: Wisdom

His wisdom isn’t bad, per say. He is aware of his surroundings well enough that most of the time, it isn’t much of an issue. Sure, sometimes he’ll miss someone slip out of the room until Anne or Ominis has to inform him, but that was only sometimes.

He can usually tell if someone’s lying, he’s read enough books on body language. But sometimes he just misses their intentions, you know? Sometimes he’ll say something slightly off to what they were intending, and would need to muster up his quick thinking and charm to cover his slip-up.  

Background:

Sebastian and Anne lived with their parents, who were professors at the nearest university, until they were aged seven. Upon their parents’ passing under mysterious circumstances, they were sent to live with their uncle in a village a few hours away. They remained there until they were old enough and decided to go back to the city they’d originally lived in.

He and Anne started a private investigator agency together in the city to make use of their skillsets. It all started when they uncovered the long-term mystery of how their parents had passed away under mysterious circumstances and upended the criminal organization responsible.

They don’t have any employees, though Ominis joined their agency as a partner. They took on cases anywhere from infiltration, gathering information, and rescuing stray cats.  

After Anne was cursed, their agency’s activities were placed on indefinite hiatus as she moved back in with their uncle, their only living relative, as living by herself had become difficult, and the herbs that stave off some of the curse’s effects are grown in abundance near the village they grew up in.

Sebastian and Solomon do not have the best relationship, but have a base understanding that they both care about Anne.

Notable Equipment:

Armor: Medium leather armor, good pair of leather gloves and boots. Nothing particularly fancy unless the occasion calls for it.

Weapons: Dual-Wielding, both rapiers. Does have a set of throwing daggers tucked away in his boots.

Main Hand: “Silver Tongue”. +1 AC and +1 Hit DC. Has a beautiful silver blade with a comforting green glow, and the handle is emerald green. A present from both Anne and Ominis after their one year-anniversary of starting their investigator agency.

Offhand: Pact Weapon “Sorrow Song.” On a critical hit, the damage dealt would automatically be dealt again to the next target as necrotic damage. Created when the pact was made with Morganach. Has a silver blade with a black handle. When the blade is used as the final blow, the blade hums in arcane energy, and the handle, momentarily, turns red. Those who receive the final blow with this blade will have milky white eyes.

Silver pendant: A strange, silver pendant with a spiral design. When his patron needs to talk to him, or he needs to talk to her, he grips onto said pendant. After Sorrow Song claims a life, it vaguely hums in arcane energy but quickly dissipates.

His reasons to join adventuring party

To search for a cure for his sister.

To help main adventurer on their quest.

To figure out who this ‘Morganach’ is.

First meeting where?

This could go a few ways, but you will always meet him in the first town you visit. The most likely meeting would be from your visit to the local tavern, wherein Sebastian would be there chatting away with the bartender like they had been friends for years, when really, they had only just met fifteen minutes ago.  

Favorite Fighting Tactic

Cast Darkness – don’t worry, he has Devil’s Sight evocation. Darkness is not a problem! (within 120 feet, of course)

Hexblade’s Curse; X marks the spot!

Sneak up right next to the target. What’s the likelihood that they can see, right?

Stabbeth and slasheth where it hurts the most. (Sneak attack) Not down yet? Well, he has two rapiers for a reason.

Oh they can see him? That’s fine, he’ll dodge them. That’s when the fun starts.

But when he feels tired and just doesn’t want to get up close? Eldritch blast, Confringo flavor.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WHY I'M SMARTER THAN PROCRASTINATION

A good piece of software, could write a whole new piece of software. But most of the work done by small groups. VCs may just sell it at a low intensity for forty years, you work as hard as you possibly can. What rational basis could they have had for saying that? Could you reproduce Silicon Valley, where the troops of the central government can't follow. That's the good part. And if they are paying you x dollars a year, then on average you must be, but as a trick for getting users to start talking to you. If this were really a meaningless question, you might be able to decrease without having to go through the government.

You can't just sit there. I do it on that computer. A round if you do it so early. So although a lot of de facto control after a series A round has in the past, everyone wants funding from them, it's good news that investors are looking for big hits. Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. You don't win fights by thinking of big ideas but by thinking of tricks that work in one particular case. This is a complicated topic. If I had to start treating it differently. Only a few companies have been smart enough to realize this so far. It's not till you start the conversation by launching the wrong thing.

I didn't realize exactly what was happening to us, please stay on the line, do you think, then choose/design the language that feels best. It's very dangerous to start worrying too late. But my instincts tell me you don't have to be careful who you pick as a cofounder, and that explains most of the surprises. Maybe that will help, if you did? Eventually you get new habits, but at its strongest it is far stronger. 0 companies were started outside the usual startup hubs, but two of them have already been reeled in through acquisitions. Mark Zuckerberg will never get to do it. He succeeded despite being a complete noob at startups, because he understood his users really well.

But it is not only manufacturing companies that create wealth. You should lean more toward firing people if the source of your trouble is overhiring. Why do people take too long on the first version of Facebook. The 20th best player may feel he has been misjudged. Let's look at our case. Why are founders fooled by this? What you need to be very good at business or have any kind of creative vision. Symbols differ from strings in that you can never safely treat fundraising as more than a mediocre local maximum: When someone is determined, there's still a danger that they'll follow a long, hard path that ultimately leads nowhere. In most other cities, the prospect of starting a startup is like a hang-glider launch: you'd better do it wholeheartedly, or not. They're not Goody Two-Shoes type good. It has to set off alarms.

One reason it's hard to change something so simple as a name, imagine how hard it is to do a really good job on anything you don't think about in the shower. Nerds are a distinct type of rich people, it will be easy to raise more, and the next week no one will know if you fail. A company is defined by the schleps it will undertake. Gaming the system may continue to work if you go to a new set of buildings, and do things that you do not, ordinarily, enjoy doing. And what's your real job supposed to be bound by some plan you made early on. In the Valley, lightning has a sign bit. They don't want to face what is usually the real reason there aren't more Googles is not that most towns kill startups. Fortunately if this does happen it will take over your life to satisfy a process so mindless that there's a whole industry devoted to subverting it. A decade from now the players will be hard to tell apart, and there are companies that will give $20k to a startup that has nothing more than a plan A. And more importantly, by selecting that small a group you can get over the threshold by cutting salaries a little, you might be able to enjoy them in peace. Rejection is a question, not an answer. I said something to a partner at a well known VC firm that gave him the mistaken impression I was considering starting another startup.

So you must consciously discount for that. The only place your judgement makes a difference is in the borderline cases. We were not far off: this was the sort of problems hackers are used to solving, giving customers what they want. Within the US, there are advantages to serendipity too, especially early in life. Startups hurt themselves way more often than competitors hurt them, for example, instead of making users happy. A quarter of their life. Your contribution may be indirect. When I talk to don't know whether they're default alive or default dead? There isn't so much a phone as a replacement for a phone. Because VCs like publicity. Maybe it's just because knowledge about them hasn't permeated our culture yet. That's the real point of startups.

We're trying to find the most promising range of options afterward. The startup may have more long-term plan pleases everyone. A lot of founders that was the big surprise: How hard it is to live in Pittsburgh or Ithaca. You probably do need to be solved. I do that the main purpose of a company, and a startup that depends on deals with big companies to exist, it often feels like they're trying to ignore you out of existence. The articles are full of descriptions of problems that need to be in twenty years, and then thinking of the answer in the shower in the morning is more important than I'd thought. If you work patiently it's less stressful, and you prosper only to the extent you do. The second dimension is the one you have most control over is how much things changed as they grew. When I ask people what they regret most about high school, I now realize, is that they've been trained to do for their whole lives to jump through predefined hoops.

So few businesses really pay attention to making customers happy. Customers are used to being maltreated. Optimizing in solution-space is familiar and straightforward, but you can get over the threshold by cutting salaries a little, nimble guy being chased by a big, independent company is the same as just being able to do work worth about $3 million a year seems high to some people, it will take over your life for a lot of new areas. A company that an angel is willing to put $50,000 into at a valuation of a million can't take $6 million from VCs at that valuation. Complaining that VCs were jerks used to seem as naive to me as complaining that users didn't read the reference manual. But the first is by far the biggest problem. Now everyone can, and we want to keep in close touch as you develop it further. So any language comparison where you have to pay a little more than they would in a big company is not afraid to be sued; it's an everyday thing for them to average their work together with a small group of their peers. There are two different ways people judge you. Procrastination feeds on distractions. He responded so eagerly that for about half a second I found myself considering doing it.

Thanks to Patrick Collison, Jeff Weiner, Jessica Livingston, Sarah Harlin, and David Sloo for inviting me to speak.

[dandelionsarenotfruit]

This is my paternal grandfather standing in Mannheim, Germany, during World War II. An emaciated young German man is in the window behind him. My grandfather was part of the 42nd "Rainbow" Infantry Division that aided in the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp.

He died when I was only 4, but my dad said that his father barely ever spoke to him of his service and the things he witnessed because it was too harrowing for him. I think about him any time I read about neo-Nazis because it offends me so much that the very thing he fought so hard against has arisen again, perpetrated by people who don't seem to care about the ramifications of their actions. People who think that racial and religious and cultural persecution is acceptable. People who apparently feel very flippantly about genocide.

I don't think my grandfather would have dealt well with the news of the last few years after what he saw in Germany, and I think that's true for the thousands of soldiers who fought against the Nazis. I'm a pacifist, but I understand we will never live in a world without war and strife, and I am against the military industrial complex, but have the utmost respect for veterans (I also think that, for all of its rhetoric, the United States falls extremely short when it comes to providing for its own soldiers when their service ends). People like my grandfather put their lives on the line to stop genocide and now there are fools who would dare to co-opt that dangerous rhetoric? To raise their arms in that salute? To take that symbol (which was itself stolen and twisted) and put it on their wall?

The very fact that neo-Nazis exist in this world makes me so angry. Considering the concerted efforts made to end their original regime, you have to be the lowest of the low to ever propagate something so harmful to millions of people, something that ended family lines and tore apart a continent. And to think that this type of person would probably want to blithely complain that no one "supports our troops" or respects the Army, all while holding the very symbol that soldiers like my grandfather rallied against. What could be less respectful of "our troops" than that? What the hell do they think "our troops" were fighting against? You don't get to glamorize war and service without understanding what the war was about and what the service did. Can you imagine these torch-waving sycophants being transported to the 1940s? Every American would have run them out of town on a rail. It is WILD that an American would decide to emulate the far right. To my knowledge, the Germans of today have zero tolerance for anyone even pretending to be a Nazi or making light of these beliefs and that's exactly how we should treat it, too. With a grave understanding that we can't ever truly comprehend just how many lives were lost, stolen, terminated, and a fierce determination to never allow that to happen again.

This probably isn't as clear of a post as I want it to be, but I have thought about this so many times and I'm proud of my grandfather for doing what he did, at untold personal cost. I wish I could have spoken to him about his service; I'm not sure he would have been able to say anything, though. I'm just so disappointed and frankly livid on his behalf that this particular evil rose again so quickly.

Also, I have a very German last name and significant German heritage through my grandfather and I imagine that that, too, must have pained him. To see the country his ancestors came from held hostage by a delusional and soulless tyrant.

[ultrajaphunter]

Why is the Ukrainian counteroffensive going exactly as planned and definitely not moving slowly, but rather moving better than many expected?

However, the devil is in the details, which I intend to expose here, according to my humble opinion:

1. Before presenting my arguments, I would like to reiterate that I am a political consultant and by no means a military analyst. I am a layperson in the art of war, a simple and humble observer of the events in Ukraine, but I have read extensively about techniques, tactics, and military strategy because political strategy derives from them, which is practically one of the things I was involved in before the war in Ukraine.

what is happening on the front in terms of offense and defense, as they are defined by theorists of modern warfare:

1.1 The type of Russian defense. A combination of static defense (such as fortifications like the Maginot Line in WW2) and in-depth defense, meaning dispersed defense in multiple layers (defense lines), such as the Surovikin Line.

1.2 The type of Ukrainian attack. A combination of methodical attack and breakthrough attack (or as it has materialized in the collective mindset, the term Blitzkrieg).

2. Please take into consideration that the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) do not have air superiority or air supremacy. Therefore, the Western doctrine of attack, which relies on air supremacy, cannot be implemented in the Ukrainian counteroffensive.

2.1 At the same time, when considering the idea that "the counteroffensive is moving slowly," please compare it unintentionally with the Kharkiv counteroffensive in September 2022.

I say unintentionally because in the field of communication sciences, this is called "shadow framing," which means what remains as residual memory and what we refer to every time we compare the unfolding of an event, the actions of a person, or the actions of the same person in situations that seem similar, but at a certain time interval between the two actions.

3. Therefore, "shadow framing" subconsciously dictates to you that the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) are not advancing quickly. No one would have known what "quick" means if they didn't have a benchmark to compare it to, and that benchmark is for many of those who have been following the war from the beginning, exactly what I mentioned above: the Kharkiv counteroffensive. However, what our own brain deceives us about is that it does not take into account several variables that have changed since then:

3.1 The Russian army did not have any kind of fortified defense line. At this moment, the Surovikin Line has up to 6 successive lines of defense in depth, some of which are fortified. So, the difference between Russian defense then and now is like the difference between hitting a wall at a speed of 80 km/h in a 1966 Lada or in a 2023 Premium SUV.

3.2 By having this time at their disposal, the Russians, by constructing the Surovikin Line, have put the Ukrainians in difficulty, which means they have to adapt their attack from what we saw almost daily in September 2022 as a breakthrough attack (Blitzkrieg) to a positional attack combined with limited breakthroughs. Why do they do this? To limit their losses and to not lose momentum.

3.3 In September 2022, by deceiving the Russians that the attack would be in Kherson, the Russians were forced to dislocate a large part of their troops to defend the only city that had both symbolic and strategic value: Kherson.

The Ukrainians did this then to scatter their defense in Kharkiv, and they succeeded.

Today, the Russians know clearly that the attack will be in the southern front, and moreover, they have detonated the Khakovka dam in a terrorist style to slow down the Ukrainians from attacking them from two flanks.

3.4 In September 2022, HIMARS was still a novelty for the Russians, and they did not yet have a response to it. The destruction caused by HIMARS to the logistics centers on the Kharkiv front, such as Velyki Burluk, Kupyansk, and Izium, was decisive for the collapse of the front altogether.

Today, we have a completely different situation. It is true that now there is Shadow Storm, which works wonders, but the Russians have adapted.

There are fewer large troop concentrations, the depots are smaller and dispersed (to make the use of Shadow Storms economically inefficient), and the logistics centers are also smaller and dispersed in multiple localities. -----

Thus, what we see today is NOT comparable in any way to the counteroffensive in Kharkiv, to which the majority (including Western Generals) of people refer when they say "the counteroffensive is moving slowly."

If we start taking that into consideration, then let's see what we're looking at.

The map that I have drawn here was done on May 5, almost 2 months ago. "1" on the map represents what I call the "Southern Kherson Island," delimited to the south by the entrance to Crimea, to the east by the border of Zaporizhia Oblast, and to the north and west by the Dnieper River.

The plans for this part have been complicated by the terrorist attack by Russia at the Nova Khakovka dam. "2" on the map represents what I consider the main area that the Ukrainians want to conquer: the zone between Henichesk and Berdiansk. "3" on the map represents the line of attack that would lead towards Berdiansk and then (or perhaps even before) towards the liberation of Mariupol.

I added the pink arrow because I said 2 months ago to pay attention in the direction of Bakhmut-Siversk-Kreminna. ----- 4.

Taking all these things into consideration, what is Ukraine doing now and why do I believe that this counteroffensive is moving at an absolutely admirable pace, even exceeding expectations in certain areas of the front? -

The Ukrainian Armed Forces (AFU) are using a hybrid model of elastic attack: between breakthrough and positional attacks (using artillery to strike deep and diminish Russian forces).

In the initial phase, they attack a point, practically using raid-style attacks (rapid, with high force density and a predetermined time and space limit) to force the Russians to counter with artillery fire - thus exposing their positions and prompting them to send infantry and mechanized infantry to confront the Ukrainians - in what would normally be called "offensive defense."

When the Russians resort to these actions, abandoning their positions, the Ukrainians withdraw and utilize their artillery, IFVs, and tanks.

The former is used to destroy Russian artillery batteries, where they still maintain numerical superiority, and the latter is employed to eliminate forces deployed for trench defense.

This strategy is gradually thinning out the defense in the Surovikin Line, which is why we see increasing penetrations of the Russian defense on a daily basis, reaching greater depths. -

The Battle for Bakhmut. Why is it important? Because, the Russians are still massing between 50,000 and 70,000 personnel in that direction.

Why? Because Bakhmut is Putin's only victory, and he cannot afford to lose a locality that currently holds no strategic value (just as it did not have any before).

Moreover, today Bakhmut is just a destroyed city, with no value for the Russian Federation, the sponsor state of terrorism.

These tens of thousands of troops are thus fixed by the Ukrainians, who have meanwhile taken the initiative, entered Bakhmut and gained ground both to the north and south of it, forcing the Russians to remain fixated there.

Despite the lower number of artillery batteries, lower ammunition supplies, and the natural disadvantage of being on the offensive, despite the fact that Ukraine's air force is almost non-existent compared to Russia's, the Ukrainian Armed Forces (AFU) have made progress today on all four axes in the south (Kherson, Vasylivka, Orekhiv-Tokmak, Velyka Novosilka-Berdiansk),

but especially in the Bakhmut area, where they have crossed the Siversky Donets canal, are close to encircling Klischiivka, are already attacking Kumydivka and Andriivka to the south, and have territorial gains in the north.

Once again, read the last part: despite all the shortcomings mentioned above, the AFU is advancing at a rate that I honestly, as someone who closely follows the course of the war, did not expect! -----

5. Then why did Zelensky say that he will show (speaking in the future tense) that this counteroffensive will prove to go well until the NATO Summit in Vilnius on July 11, and why did General Mark Milley say, "the counteroffensive is going well, but at a slower pace than expected"? -

Zelensky made a concise political statement.

And... -

With all due respect to General Mark Milley, he was the one who stated that "in the event of an invasion, Kyiv will fall within 72 hours" (he made this statement on February 5).

So, allow me to disagree with him this time.

Russian T-72B tank with a roof screen

Conclusion: We are talking about a real war, with people dying every day, with advancements by the AFU, and perhaps most importantly, without the AFU engaging with what I call "The Nine" Brigades - the ones specially prepared for this counteroffensive!

- that Ukraine will reach the Sea of Azov by the end of this autumn, leading to the liberation of vast territories in the south.

I trust the Ukrainian Armed Forces!

Because we are also in an information war, and we are the ones fighting on it. It is up to us to win on this front, just as Ukraine will prevail on its territory!

Glory to Ukraine!

[darkcacaocookieandfriends]

More spoilers now that I'm off mobile and can type what I need. AKA I can not shut up and rant to my heart's content.

My headcanon that the mundane repetition of peace made Burning Spice fall into the desire for destruction was validated, so yay! But it's been accompanied by the thought that perhaps he found his subjects a bit...ungrateful towards what he'd done for them.

When speaking his displeasure, they sought self-preservation at the idea of their destruction. Choosing to rather put him through his own unhappiness with the state of things, rather than sacrifice themselves for his happiness. Subjects who once revered him, from his point of view only sought their own happiness at the cost of his suffering.

Makes sense as to why he'd want troops now so willing to sacrifice themselves for his glory and perhaps this was a flaw he saw with his kingdom of old.

Change twisted from growth and prosperity toward 'I have given you all this through change, and with that change I can take it away.' I was also right in saying the way in which he was corrupted was a slow twisting of the mind, a slow repurposing of his element. Change is a motif of duality. It is both good and bad depending on what type of change takes place. Over time he was twisted and perceived his own element differently. Instead of striving for growth, he did for destruction. In doing so, all he raised was all he burned to the ground.

I believe he truly saw himself as a self-fulfilling prophecy and wishes to destroy others how he was destroyed to make them see his ways and the nature of his element. I've said this before but it's no more prevalent than it is here.

It's sad, in a way a tragic hero mocking you for all he could never be. This line hit me in a specific way. Yes, he's a hypocrite and it's undoubtedly self-projection but...I can't help but to think that there's something else behind it. He is the tragedy that Golden Cheese could have become, a dark reflection of her, following the trend of beasts to ancients. In destroying his temple, he is willing to destroy his legacy and all he once built in the good of his element to succumb to the darkness of destruction - a man who truly has nothing to lose because through his actions and destruction he's taken it all from himself. A self-fulling prophecy.

It goes in line with my headcanon that he'd rather forget who he was and bury it all in the past. I've made him say before that he was not that cookie anymore, and I believed he'd always wanted to set himself apart from his failure as Herald of Change. A part he holds in deep shame and sorrow. There is something morbidly poetic about being buried beneath your own ruins. The weight of who you were crushing who you became. The shame and sorrow you so desperately tried to hide crushing you in an act of symbolism. Okay I am done ranting now, but really this update validated my headcanons in the best way possible so I thought I'd scream about it for a few dozen years. -back flips into oblivion-

Spoilered for spoilers.

Glad to know my headcanons about Burning Spice being an unhinged sadist are correct, as well as the ones about him growing bored with the monotony of the peace his civilization had.

It gives me things to add to them, actually. Guess I have new headcanons to make after all of this or maybe to just expand on my own.

Messing with the duality of his element of change has always been something I've loved doing, and the update just gives me that many more avenues to go through.

I'd write more but alas I am on mobile, stuck in a hospital room (waiting for my mother to come out of surgery) so expect more from me later.

[caesthetix]

A LITTLE FEAR — Ep. Prime Real Estate

↪Jean Kirstein mini-series

↪content; canon universe, description of violence, season 4 spoiler, forbidden love, marleyan!reader, scouts!jean, chapter 139 spoiler

You stopped whatever you were doing in an instant, both hands freezing midair as a flock of birds suddenly landed beside you. That was strange, you never saw this type of bird flying around your house before. Those birds had silky white feathers and beady black eyes, some had their gaze fixated on you.

But then again, perhaps you shouldn't have been surprised that you never saw them before.

It was not like you have been living here for years, no. For the last three years, you were here as a new citizen in a world where the fear of titans finally gone. Everything was at peace for years as this newborn country strengthened its military — under the command of the Queen.

Yes, the Queen, Historia Reiss. Never once you ever thought you would be living here of all places in the world, tending flower beds and watering plants. A Marleyan like you, the mortal enemy of those Eldians somehow slipped inside the society and even lived inside the innermost part of the country.

You lived in prime real estate located in the countryside; a medium-sized house with huge land, different compared to those gigantic and majestic buildings in the downtown area. The atmosphere was unique and you preferred this kind of house instead of the luxurious, blinding one. For you, this is home, and you couldn't wait to share it with your lover.

"(Y/n)! Don't stay too long in the garden!"

A familiar shout rang through the open area, making you turn your head to face them. She stood there with her comfortable white dress, maroon-coloured apron draped in front of her figure to make sure that any specks of dirt didn't smear her dress while her brown hair sticking out from her tight ponytail.

"I will be there in a few minutes, Ma!"

You shouted back at the top of your lungs, knowing full well that her hearing was not as sharp as yours. She just shook her head in amusement at your answer since she could predict already that your few minutes could turn to an hour or even more. Just a habit of yours, though she wouldn't force you to stop since it took your mind off things.

Just as she did by cooking some omelette and comfort foods as she too — waiting for someone to come back.

She had a separate house near the Queen's residence, assigned there by her majesty herself. But ever since you knocked on her front door and introduced yourself to her, she decided that it would be better if she lived with you for a while, at least until her son came back. Until your love came back to your arms once again.

There were letters after letters being shared despite how out of reach he was from you. You lived every day in hope that his mission to make peace with the outside world resulted in success. Lots of prayers have been sung to whatever deity existed in this world, never once stopped for every day you woke up.

And today was just like any other day as you waited for him by occupying yourself with daily chores and a new hobby. You used to wake up to strategize the next move and train in the military, being a normal citizen was still a little bit bizarre for you.

Though you already told the Queen that if in case she needed assistance regarding the air force, you would be ready to be called.

Yet three years had passed ever since your arrival, and never once she called you to the military. You had a gut feeling that your lover might have something to do with it, so you could only hope he didn't try to pull any strings behind your back and become the reason why you were never once interrupted.

Well, it was not like you didn't want this. When you finally wake up without fear, without being afraid that you had to see another bloodshed, without being afraid to love whoever you wanted to love. This was the world that you have been dreaming of, so maybe, it's fine to just enjoy it as long as you can.

Your fingers used to be covered with blood, now only covered with dirt and soil. Sometimes you couldn't believe it yourself as you were afraid to go to sleep, not wanting to wake up and realise all of this was just a dream.

But it was not a dream.

It was all real — ever since that day.

Your whole body felt so numb as you stared into the distance, back leaning to the old building behind you, not understanding what actually unfurled in front of your eyes right now.

Everything was still replayed so vividly in your mind. His ash-brown strands dishevelled from the war he had been partaking of, chocolate orbs that filled with love and regret as he took another look at you, his voice — oh his deep, comforting voice that sung like a lullaby every time he spoke.

And then bright yellow light blinded your vision.

The impact of the explosion threw you off, back arching as your body hit a concrete wall. Your vision blurred, your head pounding from the impact. But you could still see the gigantic feet right in front of you — gigantic feet that belong to a titan, replacing where your lover once stood.

You saw it, the long, familiar strands of hair that you loved to caress, those eyes that now turned into the darkest shade of brown stared at you with an emotion that you couldn't fathom. Then he jerked his head to the other side, jumping off the cliff with the other titans like a puppet whose strings were pulled.

There goes your love, that is what you already believe. Everyone knew about how once someone turned into a mindless titan, there was no way for them to change back as a human except if they ate the nine titan inheritor. And you didn't put any hope over that, just slumping your body and surrendering yourself to the situation.

You didn't know since when you drifted off somewhere as black filled your vision. But in your mind, you see him standing in front of you as he reaches out his hand for you to take. In your dream, you saw him playing around the backyard with a little kid that looked so familiar with him. In perhaps a distant future, you welcomed him home after a day full of hard work.

Then you opened up your eyes, disappointed as it was the same as what you saw before. The blistering heat attacked whoever was unfortunate enough to be outside right now, dealing with the monstrous creature as the fate of the world was in their hands.

But it was silent now, the roar of those mindless titans, booming footsteps that rumbling the ground, two enormous titans who fought each other before — it all stopped and gone as the only thing that welcomed you was a quiet, somewhat peaceful atmosphere.

With your legs still wobbling from the impact before, you looked around as you wondered what happened now. Finding no one in sight, not even from the Marleyan Military made you raise your eyebrows in confusion. Was it all done? The war between Eren Yeager and the alliance of Paradis and Marley? What happened now and where are they?

There were so many questions popping in your head as you forced yourself to check out the land near Fort Salta, finding some of your troops pointing all of their guns to the Eldians that somehow — turned back into a human.

That was the only thing you needed before you ran to where they were, ignoring the pain that surged your body for every movement that you made. You were fine, this couldn't stop you from knowing the truth, this would never stop you from reaching out to the Eldian, to someone that introduced you to what it felt like to love someone.

Surely the Marleyan was just bluffing, you knew that all of the guns were already shot towards the sky before. But there was a possibility that they had another, and you couldn't bear to see another bloodshed, not when you felt like there was no need to continue this war if the main enemy was already gone.

"If we did still have the power of the titans, wouldn't we be using it to resist you?" Ah, was it true? That titan power was already gone for good from this world? "But the fact that we continue to be powerless even as you point your guns at us is the greatest possible proof of our humanity."

He made sense, even as you stopped a few steps behind the Marleyan Military, you could hear the sincerity from his words. Yet somehow, your race still couldn't accept the fact, not daring to lower their gun just yet. You couldn't really blame them for doing so, knowing how much terror that they have seen just for the last couple of hours.

So you stood forward, dragging your feet as you ignored the surprised gasp from your troops.

"Everyone, drop your guns to the ground." You still couldn't hear any movement as you said so, and you clicked your tongue over that. "Now!"

Then one by one, you heard how the metal weapon fell to the ground like a symbol of peace. There were around twenty troops behind you, the survivors of the explosion before, the only people who lived from Marleyan Military after such a horrendous event. And they obeyed your command, believing in you that you would make the right choice.

You turned to look at your troops, giving them a reassuring gaze one by one that from now on, everything would be alright. Some of them were crying, some of them fell to the ground as they screamed out, out of frustration or relief for being alive, you couldn't differentiate it anymore, maybe a bit of both.

Your job was done, for now, so you had to know what happened. You needed to know who was the man who stood in front of you now as his ocean blue eyes gazing at you with respect and gratitude. He gave you a firm nod, and you followed after as you straightened your posture.

"Then, who are you?"

"I am Armin Arlert, an Eldian from the island of Paradis. The man who killed Eren Yeager, the attack titan."

The way he said it was absolute. Certainty was there and somehow you wanted to just let your sore body fall to the ground as relief started to fill your heart. But not yet, you had to be the commander of the air force unit, probably the only higher-ups left in the military here.

"Greetings then, Armin Arlert." You started, giving him a Marleyan salute as he answered it by balling his right hand into a fist, resting it right in front of his heart after that. "I am the commander of the air force unit of Marleyan Military, my troops and I would do anything we could do to assist everyone here."

For the next few hours, everyone who was healthy enough was assigned to take care of those who had injuries or any other casualties. You as the commander, trying to call and inform the military base in the capital. Solace flooded over you once again when you received the news that more than a half part of Marley was still intact.

You immediately called for backup, informing them to tell the whole world what happened in Fort Salta. This needed to be distributed now, that they didn't have to worry anymore, that the world was finally free from titans. You told them all the little details about those who fought in the battle, you told them that it was thanks to the Eldians themselves that the rumbling stopped.

"It's..." You trailed off as the chief on the other line asked you the name of the war that shook the world just now. "It's the battle of heaven and earth."

Today marked the three years of the world's victory against titans. Eldians finally freed from the curse and lived a normal life like humanity in the rest of the world. Though, of course, doubt and fear still lingered in the heart of the people. That was why those soldiers who directly fought with the attack titan became the ambassador of peace, travelling around the world to tell their stories.

They were the ones who lived, the heroes who chose to fight humanity who always treated their race like an insect. They were those who chose humanity over their own life, the ones who cast their feelings aside and killed their best friend because that was the right thing to do.

And your lover was one of them, he was an Eldian, a soldier who was ready to sacrifice his life in war.

Jean Kirstein, the man that you met in a bar back then in Marley, the only person who could make you feel so bare as he painted you with affection.

The person who you would wait a thousand years if you had to, so long so you could be together.

You subconsciously touched your left fingers, tracing your coarse skin as you absentmindedly remembered the reunion that you had with him. Not the one where he shouted at you to stay back, not the one where it filled with painful tears as you saw him transformed into a titan in front of your eyes.

But it was the one that made you feel so full. After calling the capital and making sure the Eldian would be treated fairly, you finally could take a breather and sit just outside the tower in Fort Salta. The sun slowly turned into an orange hue that time, your body was all aching as the adrenaline from before started to wear off.

You didn't turn your face away from the horizon as you felt someone sat beside you on the ground, not saying anything for the next couple of minutes as you and the mysterious figure just basked yourself on the peaceful atmosphere, something that was never there with how war and violence always filled the ground.

The orange hue slowly reddened as the sun hid behind the mountain, letting the moon take over with thousands of stars adorned the night sky.

There were no words being spoken as two bodies decided to scoot closer to each other as if there were strings that bound them together. You dropped your head on his shoulder, letting out a long sigh as the realisation finally sank in.

"I am back, (Y/n)." His voice was still filled with disbelief. "Just like what I promised you." But it sounds the same as how it used to, lingering with something that you knew as love.

You lifted your head a little, wanting to take a look at him and scrutinizing his face. He was here, Jean Kirstein in a flesh. He was not a titan anymore, he was just an Eldian from the island of Paradis, a normal human, just like you.

There was a dingling sound as he fetched something from his pocket, your eyes never left his as you felt a warm metal slipped on your palm. He closed your hand after that, wanting you to know that he was real, that he finally could give back the silver key that he brought with him ever since in Marley.

You felt like you wanted to burst at the moment. You wanted to cry, screaming at him for fighting the attack titan despite being a mere soldier who didn't even inherit the nine titans, you wanted to ask how he felt right now and what actually happened, there was so much that you wanted to say, so many words that you wanted to tell him.

But there would be a time for that, you were certain that you would have a lot of time after all of these were done.

So you just curled your lips into a smile, orbs glistening with tears as it shone with adoration, palm gripping the key a little tighter with his hand on top of yours.

"Welcome back, Jean."

You patted the excess of the dirt in your hand on your black apron, finally done repotting some of the plants. When your eyes fleeted to the side, you tilted your head in confusion as the bird from before was still there, so loyal as it accompanied you for the last hour.

This one was different compared to the others. The birds that you saw before only had one solid colour, but this one that stayed with you had brown feathers on some of their features.

The bird just looked at you with wonder, tilting their head to the side as they jumped from the flower bed and landed beside you. Your lips immediately shaped into a smile, wondering why the bird decided to stay with you when the others left already.

"Hey, what are you doing here?"

You cooed at the bird, careful not to move your body too abruptly, afraid that they would fly again. Of course, you didn't expect them to chirp, but maybe you could talk to them a little. And you could write it down in the letter that you sent for Jean later on.

"I don't know why you are here, but don't you think you should go back though?"

Those beady black orbs fell upon your face as if they understood your words. "You must have a family, right? Perhaps maybe a lover?" So you decided to keep on talking, throwing some random questions, conversing with them like an old friend. "Bet your lover is so beautiful like you, and they must be waiting for you, you know?"

"Like you wait for me?"

Silence. On the first second, the bird was in front of you. But now, they flapped their wings and flew, leaving you there with both pupils widened as a familiar voice rang through your ear. You didn't understand why they suddenly left, but maybe, maybe it was because of the fact that you were not alone anymore.

That maybe because they knew your lover came back.

And so they would do the same and flew to where their lover was.

"Jean?"

No, he was not supposed to be here. From the letters that you got last week, he was supposed to be in Marley right now with the others. He told you that through the words that he scribbled down on the old paper, and you remembered how he would come back next month.

But of course, your eyes wouldn't deceive you, of course, your ear could never catch the exact voice that belonged to him if he was not really here.

He stood around five feet apart from you with a cheeky smile that made you want to just slap it away from his beautiful face. His ash-brown locks slightly got longer, looking neat despite the wind that swayed some strands of his hair, and you wondered how many times he combed his hair to make it look like that.

Though you didn't care about it, you didn't care about how he was here right now when you were certain he should have been somewhere else. You didn't care that you stumbled on some of the gardening tools as you ran towards him. You didn't care if your apron could leave some dirt on his expensive suit.

What you cared right now as your feet brought you closer to him — was to feel his embrace once more.

You jumped right into his arms, chin resting on his shoulder as you wrapped your arms around his neck, not wanting to let go. Right now, you just wanted to shout and announce to the world that you wanted him for yourself, at least for just a few minutes, at least for a moment.

Everyone could call you selfish at this point you didn't care anymore. For all your life you never wanted anything but a world without fear. And now as you achieved it, the only matter that could complete it was to spend it all with the one that somehow had half of your heart anywhere he goes.

You have waited for him for far too long. You always waited for him afraid that he wouldn't come back to your apartment, you always waited for him with distress lingering at the back of your mind that he was not alive anymore when he was there on the other side of the sea.

But now as you felt the warmth within his touch, now as you felt his smile as his lips planted on the side of your face, you finally knew how it feels to live in a world without fear since from now on, you were free to love him.

He was too — free to love you as his real self, an Eldian, a war hero, Jean Kirstein from the island of Paradis.

"I am home."

And as the two bodies basked in the warmth of a loved one, hand intertwined that clashed a silver metal band next to each other, they both knew that from now on — they were going to wake up every single morning and live their dream.

In a world where there was no fear, spending it in prime real estate with a significant other.

Earning the right to live a happy life for hopefully, a long time.

"Welcome home, Jean."

↪Back to Wall Maria

↪Citizen; @yumaryko @may-machin​ @cuteissei​

↪Send an ask if you want to be a citizen of Paradis (taglist)!

[a-queer-seminarian]

Jesus flipping tables: a more accurate & respectful reading

This post shares a large chunk of chapter two of Amy-Jill Levine’s book Entering the Passion of Jesus. (Read the whole chapter as a PDF here.) Levine is a Jewish woman who is also a Professor of New Testament Studies.

Levine combats traditional readings of the text with their antisemitic layers by evincing how Jesus’s anger reflects the anger of his predecessors Jeremiah and Zechariah — an anger focused not on the simple fact that sacrificial animals were sold in the Temples’ outer courts, but on the way the Temple (like many of our worship spaces today) had become a safe place for corrupt oppressors, who behaved as if their daily atrocities would be overlooked by God if they paid for a sacrifice every now and again.

TL;DR: to sum up Levine’s points, she evinces how:

Jesus’s whole table flipping, whip-wielding stunt is more symbolic than practical (echoing similar stunts pulled by his people’s prophets).

Some have argued Jesus is mad about gentiles not being allowed to worship in the temple, but they very much were welcome. (There were places and rituals off limits to them, just as there are certain things non-members can’t do in our own worship spaces, like take communion or be on a committee). 

Jesus wasn’t pissed about animals being sold in the temple’s outer courts; that was normal and logical. There’s also no evidence of exploitation or unjust prices, so he’s not angry about the poor being cheated here either.

Jesus did not reject the Temple, or its laws & rituals! He followed them himself and helped restore people to them. (He even has “zeal for his father’s house.”)

Jesus also isn’t condemning the high priest or other priests with his actions here. That’s just not in the text; plus Caiaphas’s worry about Jesus’s actions inciting political violence that could harm his people were reasonable.

What Jesus is communicating with his table flipping and whip-wielding: he’s upset that the Temple is as “a den of thieves,” a place where people who sin and oppress in their everyday life feel perfectly comfortable, instead of feeling called to repent and reform. His words hearken back to previous prophets with similar concerns.

And finally, in the version of this story told in John’s Gospel, Jesus seems to be looking forward to a time when the Temple is no longer needed, for all places will be sacred and God will speak directly to everyone of every nation -- once again, Jesus is hearkening back to previous prophets who looked forward to the same thing. This is also a concept that the Pharisees were into, so stop depicting the Pharisees as “evil” or “backwards” or completely at odds with Jesus! (One key difference between Jesus’s vision and the Pharisees’ if of course that Jesus identifies a “new temple,” his own body.)

One last thing: if you’re unfamiliar with the various Gospel versions of the “temple cleansing” -- Matthew 21:12-17, Mark 11:11-17, Luke 19:45-46, and John 2:13-17 -- or want to reference them as you read this post, visit this webpage to read them all.

Without further ado -- the excerpt from Levine.

________________

The incident known as the ‘Cleansing of the Temple’ is described in all four Gospels. Most people have the idea--probably from Hollywood--that this is a huge disruption. When we see this scene depicted in movies, we find Jesus fuming with anger, and we inevitably see gold coins falling down in slow motion. Everything in the Temple comes to a standstill. ...But we are not watching a movie: we are studying the Gospels. 

Here's what we know about the actual setting. We begin by noting that the Temple complex was enormous. It was the size of twelve soccer fields put end to end. So, if Jesus turns over a table or two in one part of the complex, it's not going to make much of a difference given the size of the place.

The action therefore did not stop all business; it is symbolic rather than practical. Our responsibility is to determine what was symbolized.

For that, we need to know how the Temple functioned.

The Jerusalem Temple, which King Herod the Great began to rebuild and which was still under construction at the time of Jesus, had several courts. The inner sanctum, known as the "Holy of Holies," is where the high priest entered, only on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, to ask for forgiveness for himself and for the people. Outside of that was the Court of the Priests, then the Court of Israel, the Court of the Women, and then the Court of the Gentiles, who were welcome to worship in the Temple. 

The outer court, the Court of the Gentiles, is where the vendors sold their goods. The Temple at the time of Jesus was many things: it was a house of prayer for all nations; it was the site for the three pilgrimage festivals of Passover, Shavuot/Pentecost, and Sukkot/Booths; it was a symbol of Jewish tradition (we might think of it as comparable, for the Jewish people of the time, to how Americans might view the Statue of Liberty); it was the national bank, and it was the only place in the Jewish world where sacrifices could be offered. Therefore, there needed to be vendors on site.

Pilgrims who sought to offer doves (such as Mary and Joseph do, following the birth of Jesus, according to Luke 2:24) or a sheep for the Passover meal would not bring the animals with them from Galilee or Egypt or Damascus. They would not risk the animal becoming injured and so unfit for sacrifice. The animal might fly or wander away, be stolen, or die. And, as one of my students several years ago remarked, "The pilgrims might get hungry on the way." One bought one's offering from the vendors.

And, despite Hollywood, and sermon after sermon, there is no indication that the vendors were overcharging or exploiting the population. The people would not have allowed that to happen. Thus, Jesus is not engaging in protest of cheating the poor.

Next, we need to think of the Temple as something other than what we think of churches. A church, usually, is a place of quiet and decorum. ...The Temple was something much different: It was a tourist attraction, especially during the pilgrimage festivals. It was very crowded, and it was noisy. The noise was loud and boisterous, and because it was Passover, people were happy because they were celebrating the Feast of Freedom. ...We might think of the setting as a type of vacation for the pilgrims: a chance to leave their homes, to catch up with friends and relatives, to see the "big city," and to feel a special connection with their fellow Jews and with God. It is into this setting that Jesus comes.

______________

Driving out the Vendors 

...It seems to me that Jesus, in the Temple, was angry. But what so angered him? I hear from a number of people, whether my students in class or congregations who have invited me to speak with them, that the Temple must have been a dreadful institution; that it exploited the poor; that it was in cahoots with Rome; that Caiaphas, the High Priest in charge of the Temple, was a terrible person; that it banned Gentiles from worship and so displayed hatred of foreigners; and so forth. ...Some tell me that the Temple imposed oppressive purity laws that forbade people from entering, and so Jesus, who rejected those laws, rejected the temple as well. No wonder Jesus wants to destroy the institution.

But none of those views fits what we know about either Jesus or history.

First, Jesus did not hate the Temple, and he did not reject it. If he did, then it makes no sense that his followers continued to worship there. Jesus himself calls the Temple "my Father's house" (Luke 7:49: John 2:16). ...

Second, Jesus is not opposed to purity laws. To the contrary, he restores people to states of ritual purity. Even more, he tells a man whom he has cured of leprosy, "Go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them" (Mark 1:44; see also Matthew 8:4; Luke 5:14). 

Third, Jesus says nothing about the Temple exploiting the population. As we'll see in the next chapter, when we talk about the widow who makes an offering of her two coins, Jesus is concerned not with what the Temple charges, but with the generosity of the worshipers. 

Fourth, we've already seen that the Temple has an outer court, where Gentiles are welcome to worship. They were similarly welcome in the synagogues of antiquity, and today. They do not have the same rights and responsibilities as do Jews, and that makes sense as well. When I [a Jewish woman] visit a church, there are certain things I may not do. We might also think of how nations function: Canadians, for example, cannot do certain things in the USA, such as vote for president; nor can citizens of the USA vote in Canadian elections.

As for Caiaphas...Caiaphas is basically between a rock and a hard place. He is the nominal head of Judea, and he is supposed to keep the peace. Judea is occupied by Rome, and Roman soldiers are stationed there. Caiaphas needs to make sure that these soldiers do not go on the attack. He needs to placate Pilate, and he needs to placate Rome. 

At the same time, as the High Priest, he has a responsibility to the Jewish tradition. Rome wanted the Jews to offer sacrifices to the emperor...but Caiaphas and the other Jews refused to participate in this type of offering because they would not worship the emperor. The most they were willing to do was offer sacrifices on behalf of the emperor and the empire.

When Jesus comes into the city in the Triumphal Entry, when people are hailing him as son of David, Caiaphas recognizes the political danger. The Gospel of John tells us that the people wanted to make Jesus king (John 6:15). Caiaphas has to watch out for the mob. Caiaphas also has to watch out for all these Jewish pilgrims coming from all over the empire celebrating the Feast of Freedom, the end of slavery. When he sees Roman troops surrounding the Temple Mount, Caiaphas has to keep the peace. And Jesus is a threat to that peace. But none of this has to do directly with Jesus' actions in the Temple. He is not at this point protesting Caiaphas's role.

Sometimes I hear people say that Jesus drove the "money lenders” out of the Temple. That's wrong, too. Money-lending was a business into which the medieval church forced Jews, because the church concluded that charging interest was unnatural (money should not beget money). Yet people needed, then and now, to take out loans. The issue for the Gospel is not money lending but money changing. These money changers exchanged the various currencies of the Roman Empire into Tyrian shekels, the type of silver coin that the Temple accepted. We experience the same process when we visit a foreign country and have to exchange our money for the local currency.

So, if Jesus is not condemning the Temple itself, or financial exploitation, or purity practices, what is he condemning? Let's look at what the Gospels actually say.

According to Matthew, Mark, and Luke, ...the concern is not the Temple, but the attitude of the people who are coming to it.

In Mark's account Jesus begins by saying, "Is it not written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations?" (11:17). Indeed, it is so written. Jesus is here condensing and then quoting Isaiah 56:6-7... Jesus' rhetorical question should be answered with a resounding “Yes!"--for the Temple already was a house of prayer for all people. More, he is standing in the Court of the Gentiles when he makes his pronouncement. ...Thus, the problem is not that the Temple excludes Gentiles. 

Already we find the challenge, and the risk. Are churches Today houses of prayer for all people, or are they just for people who look like us, walk like us, and talk like us?

How do we make other people feel welcome? Is the stranger greeted upon walking into the church? Is the first thing a stranger hears in the sanctuary, "You're in my seat"? When we pray or sing hymns, do we think of what those words would sound like in a stranger's ears? ...

Matthew and Luke drop out "For all nations," and appropriately so, for they knew it already was a house of prayer for all nations. Matthew and Luke thus change the focus to one of prayer. And prayer gets us closer to what is going on in the Synoptic tradition.

___________

Den of Thieves

Jesus continues, ‘But you are making it a den of robbers’ (Matthew 21:13). Here he is quoting Jeremiah 7:11: “Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your sight?”

A "den of robbers" (sometimes translated a "den of thieves") is not where robbers rob. "Den” really means "cave," and a cave of robbers is where robbers go after they have taken what does not belong to them, and count up their loot. The context of Jeremiah's quotation -- and remember, it always helps to look up the context of citations to the Old Testament -- tells us this.

Jeremiah 7:9-10 depicts the ancient prophet as condemning the people of his own time, the time right before Babylonians destroyed Solomon's Temple over five hundred years earlier: “Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, ‘We are safe!’ -- only to go on doing all these abominations?" 

Some people in Jeremiah's time, and at the time of Jesus, and today, take divine mercy for granted and see worship as an opportunity to show off new clothes rather than recommit to clothing the naked. The present-day comparison to what Jeremiah, and Jesus, condemned is easy to make: The church member sins during the workweek, either by doing what is wrong or by failing to do what is right. Then on Sunday morning this same individual, perhaps convinced of personal righteousness, heartily sings the hymns, happily shakes the hands of others, and generously puts a fifty-collar bill in the collection plate. That makes the church a den of robbers -- a cave of sinners. It becomes a safe place for those who are not truly repentant and who do not truly follow what Jesus asks. The church becomes a place of showboating, not of fishing for people. 

Jeremiah and Jesus indicted people then, and now. The ancient Temple, and the present-day church, should be places where people not only find community, welcome the stranger, and repent of their sins. They should be places where people promise to live a godly life, and then keep their promises. ...

___________

Stop Making My Father's House a Marketplace

John's Gospel says nothing about the house of prayer or den of robbers. In John's Gospel, Jesus starts not simply by overturning the tables, but also by using a “whip of cords" (since weapons were not permitted in the Temple, he may have fashioned the whip from straw at hand), and driving out the vendors. Jesus when says to the dove sellers, "Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father's house a marketplace!" (John 2:16). He is alluding to Zechariah 14:21, the last verse from this prophet, "and every cooking pot in Jerusalem and Judah shall be sacred to the Lord of hosts, so that all who sacrifice may come and use them to boil the flesh of the sacrifice. And there shall no longer be traders in the house of the Lord of hosts on that day."

In John's version of the Temple incident, Jesus anticipates the time when there will no longer be a need for vendors, for every house not only in Jerusalem but in all of Judea shall be like the Temple itself. The sacred nature of the Temple will spread through all the people. He sounds somewhat like the Pharisees here, since the Pharisees were interested in extending the holiness of the Temple to every household.

The message is a profound one: Can our homes be as sanctified, as filled with Worship, as the local church?

Do we “do our best" on Sunday From 11 a.m. to 12 noon, but just engage in business is usual during the workweek? Do we pray only in church, or is prayer part of our daily practice? Do we celebrate the gifts of God only when it is time to do so in the worship service, or do we celebrate these gifts morning to night? Is the church just a building, or is the church the community who gathers in Jesus' name, who acts as Jesus taught, who lives the good news? 

Jesus' words, citing Zechariah, do even more. They anticipate a time when all peoples, all nations, can worship in peace, and in love. There is no separation between home and house of worship, because the entire land lives in a sanctified state. Perhaps we can even hear a hint of Jeremiah's teaching of the "new covenant," when "no longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, 'Know the LORD,’ For they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more" (Jeremiah 31:34). Can we envision this? Can we work toward it? ...

[prongsisabadger]

TWP Chapter 27

The fact that the extraction team was in orbit didn't mean we would be getting out of Felucia right away. The separatist forces had blockaded the system and the fighters would have to punch a hole in it first. I would have worried about it if it hadn't been the 104th that had been sent. The pack had incredibly talented pilots, most of them reassigned to him after their former squadrons had been destroyed.

Very early on, Master Plo had decided he would take in any troopers who had lost their entire squads and needed to be reassigned. According to Ahsoka, some Masters thought it silly. Why want a battalion made up of whichever troops death hadn't claimed? None of them had worked together before, they didn't know each other's dynamics and would probably be an inefficient group of traumatized misfits.

Turns out they weren't. Scarred and burdened with survivor's guilt, the members of the Pack got very close, very fast because they had a lot in common: they all yearned for comfort, a place to belong to. That is what the Pack was. In addition to that, Master Plo's caring yet imposing nature made for an incredible leader to rally behind. That, and soldiers who survive the loss of an entire squadron are either lucky or skilled, either way they were both good things to have in battle.

So you could see why I wasn't concerned, the best pilots in the GAR were coming to break the blockade, and break the blockade they would. There were brothers to save, Generals to aid and their very own Commander to get back. I will not lie and say I thought myself unimportant to the Pack, no, I knew I could count on them to have my back whenever I needed them because they knew I would give my life to protect them too.

Still, with the two droid battalions approaching fast from the northeast, and the possibility of the divided forces in front of us overwhelming Ahsoka, I had no time to waste keeping my eye on the sky. I had the 212th to protect too. I put all my worries aside and focused on the battle at hand. It was amazing how fast I could force my mind to compartmentalize things in the heat of battle. I realized it all came crashing down on me once the adrenaline abbed away and I found myself in a safe environment once again. It made sense, in my mind, to be able to do it, I had been Plo Koon's padawan for a few years before the start of the war and most of that time I'd been training in Dorin. The only real action I ever saw was as a member of the GAR and I'd been surrounded by soldiers the entire time. It was only natural for me to learn from and adapt to my environment.

"Commander!" it took me a second to realize it was T.H. over the comm who was trying to reach me. "Commander, do you read me?"

"Yes, T.H."

"Commander, the enemy to the northeast is five minutes out. We'll be outflanked any minute." There was distress in his voice, urgency, but not fear. He believed we would get out of there no matter the cost. but it would cost.

I turned to my master and started to back away and towards T.H's position before I yelled, "Master! I'm off to reinforce the northeast, the enemy is almost here."

He nodded, never taking his gaze away from the droids marching towards us.

"Make sure the men are ready to leave at a moment's notice."

I crossed the clearing as fast as I could, jumping over ammo crates and sprinting full speed to where I could feel T.H. As I approached the like of firing troopers, I switched my saber ona and took my stance right at the front. This was going to get ugly.

"Alright, boys, the 104th is trying to break through, we better stay alive until they arrive!" I said in as light a tone as I could manage. "Whoever kills more tinnies gets free drinks!"

"You heard the Commander, Fellas" chuckled Waxer over the comms. "She's buying my drinks tonight!"

"Yeah right, you have the aim of a geonosian bug, Waxer. I'm getting those drinks!" answered another clone.

Suddenly the commlink was alive with light hearted banter and renewed morale born of healthy competition.

"If I win though, you boys are buying for me, and I'm planning on hitting Coruscant clubs hard once we head back." I chuckled, not wanting to be left out of the conversation. We were all trying not to lose our cool as we waited for the next wave of droids to arrive and it showed.

"I never thought you were the type, Commander." Teased Boil.

"I'm not, but one's 18th solar return happens only once, trooper. And I didn't have my Age of Responsibility celebration last year, the war kinda got in the way." I laughed.

The commlink went wild, and all of a sudden I had half a platoon making arrangements for when we went back to Coruscant. The battle started, but no one seemed to notice, they were all too excited planning a bar hopping route and picking who was in charge of what for each of them. Was it unprofessional? Very much so, yes. The entire situation seemed almost fictional: troopers staring death in the face while excitedly planning a celebration. But I hadn't been aiming for professionalism, I had wanted to give them something to look forward to. I wanted them to have something to fight for other than their lives, as trivial as a solar return celebration seemed at the moment.

We had little time left on the battlefield anyway. The Pack had managed to create an opening in the enemy's blockade of Felucia and now the gunships were landing all over us to get every single soldier, Jedi and Padawan off the Force forsaken planet. I almost didn't realize the clone that came up behind me and started to lay cover fire had his armour painted gray. It was only when I felt Art through the Force that I realized we were going home.

The entire force that had been guarding the north east boarded the gunships without a second's hesitation.

"Double time, Boys. We still have to make it up to the cruiser!" I encouraged them as they all moved.

Once every last man was on board I ordered the pilot to take off. After getting clear of the foliage, I made a head count and found every trooper was present and accounted for. I reported to Master Kenobi of our situation and took the liberty of asking about Ahsoka.

"Your friend is following her Master's teachings," Said Obi-Wan with what sounded like a frustrated sigh in my ear. "I hope her habit of disobeying orders isn't contagious. I'd hate to have to go through this again with you, Kriari."

I chuckled, thinking of all those stories he had told me about Anakin as a Padwan.

"Don't worry, Master, I think Master Skywalker's made your hair go gray enough."

"Careful, young one, Anakin might be offended." He retorted with a light tone. I assumed Master Skywalker was somewhere around him and listening to every word we said.

I cut the link and focused on the rising tension around me. The gunship was swerving violently from side to side as the pilots attempted to keep us all airborne and alive. I felt the need to reassure them, tell them everything was going to be okay. But I didn't want to lie. My connection to the Force was strong, but not strong enough to see the future.

"So, who's paying for drinks tonight?"

...

"And then there was this huge argument -mid flight- about who had had the most kills and who hadn't because apparently the Commander thought alcohol was the best encouragement for the 212th. And now we need to coordinate this big ass Solar Return celebration because both battalions got excited and wanted in." Explained Headfirst trying not to laugh at how ridiculous the situation had been. "I mean the pilot was trying not to get shot down and still he went 'If I get us all on board the cruiser, do I get free drinks too?'"

The entire table burst out in laughter as we had our first meal post battle. I had left both Master Kenobi and Skywalker to deal with Ahsoka and what I assumed was a major fuck up judging by how serious they all were being about it. AfterI finished my meal, I left the men to their own devices so I could get cleaned up.

It took the Pack no time to welcome me back. I got salutes, pats on the shoulder, on the back and even a few "good to have you back, Commander" as I walked down the corridors and to my quarters to shower.

Scrubbing the dirt and grime of the battlefield felt better than I had anticipated. I was sore from the explosion and the rough landing that followed, but nothing seemed to be broken. I waited for my clothes to dry after washing them with an old robe wrapped around me. I had missed my quarters aboard the ship so much. The walls had been decorated by a few of Art's creations, a mirror and a few pictures of the Pack and I after missions. The sheets had been changed from their original grey and white to more earthy tones -I had been missing the Temple quite a lot at the time- and the closet had most of my clothes in it, if not all of them. The lingering smell of incense I'd burned the last time I had been on board still stuck to the walls and sheets. This had become my home after the Temple had been flooded by force sensitive children escaping the war. And the cozyness and familiarity of it all put me more at ease than I had been in a very long time. Not that I didn't like the 212th or my quarters there, but it was definitely not the same, even if I wore their colors on the armour for my left arm.

I got re-dressed and dried and styled my hair in its usual side part before re-braiding the longer strand on the back of my neck. I -of course- put my armour back on, but not without polishing it first. A Jedi must always look their best, they are a symbol and a representation of the Republic in the war. If we were roughed up, disheveled and dirty then it didn't do any good for morale.

As I finished smoothing away my robes, someone knocked on my door, which was odd in itself. I had already given my report and spoken to the hologram of the Council before heading for the mess hall. I hadn't had the chance to speak with either Master Plo or Wolffe because they were both engaged in post-battle protocol and I hadn't wanted to disturb them. I would get to see them later anyway now that my tour with Master Kenobi had come to an end.

I opened the door to a stone faced Wolffe. His posture and demeanor only seemed to have gotten colder and rougher during the time we'd been apart, but I still could feel how uneasy and unsure he was as he stood there, proud and strong as someone of his rank and experience.

"Commander, I wasn't expecting visits, I was on my way to the bridge to greet you and Master Plo." I said with a smile and just a smidge of confusion in my tone.

Wolffe only grew more uncomfortable with each second which was very unusual of him. I knew we had been on almost friendly terms when we last saw each other so this sudden change puzzled me greatly.

"Would you like to come in?" I asked finally, a little lost on what to do at his lack of an answer.

This seemed to startle him because he rejected my offer right away, like the idea was preposterous -which it might have been but I had a mute soldier in front of my quarters so what was I to do?

"I was-" he started before clearing his throat, his cheeks tinting slightly. "I was here to deliver something to you on behalf of the 104th." he said, pulling out a sheath from behind him.

It wasn't longer than my forearm and the sheath was the exact same grey color as my utility belt and lightsaber. Unable to say anything I took the weapon and unsheathed it. It was a beautifully crafted vibroblade. I looked up at Wolffe, grateful, confused, and a little giddy. He didn't return my gaze, in fact he was purposefully avoiding it. I didn't mind, he wasn't the type to show he cared, this was very new to him.

"Thank you, Wolffe. It's beautiful," I said, securing it horizontally on my belt at the small of my back. "But to what do I owe this amazing gift?"

Wolffe's face colored even further as he steeled his resolve and turned to look me in the eyes.

"Your armour has too much orange in it. We felt a little more gray was necessary."

[sayitaliano]

Oh cool reading, let me add just to add a little more bg about this Alpini hat (just because).

That hat is the so called "cappello alla Ernani" from a mountaineer guy (Ernani) who, in order to rebel to Spain's tyranny, used to wear a round hat with a pen on it [from Giuseppe Verdi's play "Ernani"]. The pen symbolizes the strenght against adversities and the pride of the Alpini in our Nation, and ofc the group of Alpini itself (since 1872, when they were founded in Napoli). To be honest this wasn't the first type of hat they adopted. It started with a chepì or kepi (similar to the Austrians' one) with a star and the number of the brigata on the front and a crow's pen (for the officers, the pen was an eagle's one); in the first months of WWI the militaries adopted the "elmetto Adrian" but Alpini and Bersaglieri weren't able to add their pens and the other symbols. So, because the Alpini also used to work especially in the snow and up in the mountains (with lightnings and storms and huge cold and wind...), they started using a balaclava + this felt hat.

The pen (25-30cm), on the left side of the hat, is of a crow and black for the troops; is from an eagle and brown for non-commissioned officers and officers; is white and of a goose for senior officers and generals. From the color of the "nappino" or "nappina" (that small disk in which you put the pen) and of the sign on the front of the hat (and the form of the hat), you can recognize which "brigata" an Alpino belongs to (for example there are the Taurinense -generally from Turin/Piedmont- and the Julia -generally from Udine/Friuli-, but many others too). Troops have the nappino in wood covered of colored wool, while officers have it in golden or silver metal. At first the nappino was used to distinguish the different battalions in the regiment (they used to have the Italian flag color, white red and green, + light blue when necessary, as it was the Savoia colour -we're talking about the Regno d'Italia years). Later on, more colors, numbers and acronyms for each specialties and unities were added (more infos here).

Now, small historical lesson aside, that hat is v much warm and kinda heavy (I tried one) and it being part of the official "divisa" means that they have to wear it in summer too, especially if they're "in servizio" (they also used, at least until the 70's, to wear a shirt in summer too... not a t-shirt, a real shirt you had to keep all buttoned up if you didn't want to get a negative behaviour note). The good thing is that each felt hat is water repellent so actually when it rains, water falls down in front of your nose (which ofc can have pros and cons, but mostly pros if you listen to the Alpini). For sure it wasn't the case for the Alpini in WWI (as mentioned above) but more recently the Alpini wear a wool beanie or even the so called "Norvegese" possibly from the Norwegian Campaign in WWII: a hat that covers the ears and the neck almost till the back, with a flap on the front. It's not (or at least it wasn't) covered in fur inside but still it was pretty warm. So yeah, maybe you can opt for that too, according on how cold are your winters.

(I read the divisa shown is from the 6° Reggimento which is the one in Brunico, Alto Adige... just leaving it here)

Been reading about the Italian Front of WW1 and now I'm like "what if I got a wool cape to keep warm this winter, pretty cool right?"

[madeofsplinters]

for the symbols ask, would you mind all of them that you havent yet done for vader? you have very good opinions on him and i would like to hear them

Aw, thank you! Although man that is A LOT of Vader headcanons left to do :D But I like writing random stuff about him, soooo... Sad:

Vader still remembers all the Jedi younglings' names.

Angry/Violent:

I mean, what in Darth Vader's life *isn't* angry/violent? Lol. The particular way that he uses the Dark Side produces a really fucked up feedback loop: he's angry and in various forms of pain all the time, which produces an energy he can channel into violence, which produces self-hate and further pain, which produces more energy. Lather, rinse, repeat.

A lot of Palpatine's work with Vader is simply about managing this loop and adjusting as necessary. Giving him enough outlets for his rage that he doesn't just combust where he stands and start breaking things he isn't supposed to; tormenting him enough, and giving him the tools to self-torment, so that it never quite subsides into peace.

This isn't the only way of using the Dark Side, but it's a common one for Sith warriors; both Maul and Kylo Ren use something similar.

Sex:

Disabled people can, too have sex - it just takes a little more creativity. Vader has plenty of creativity, as well as magic super powers. If he doesn't indulge in such things - which, honestly, in canon he probably doesn't - then it's due to psychological factors: a conservative upbringing and ascetic lifestyle, unresolved grief for his wife, self-hate, depression, not wanting to let anyone in that close, etc.

Anyways if I see one more "BuT hIs DiCk DoEsN't WoRk" post here on Tumblr dot com, as if that body part is all that sex boils down to, I may actually scream.

Living Quarters:

When he's meditating in his stupid lava fortress, Vader senses the Dark Side nexus underneath him as if it's a living being, a kind of elemental lava spirit. Sometimes he talks to it in his head. (Is it "really talking" back to him? Is he just carrying out a strange symbolic drama in his own head? Don't ask - if you don't intuitively understand how a spiritual experience can be both these things at once, then you're not on Darth Vader's level.)

His favorite thing about the lava river is that it isn't Palpatine. Vader of all people knows how destructive lava is, but lava is direct and straightforward. It doesn't lie to him. It doesn't play games on purpose just to jerk him around. It just flows on and burns what's in its path, and there are days when Vader finds that both relatable and soothing.

Romantic:

Vader has a weakness for partners who are older than him, brave, smart, outwardly stable (the insides may vary), have a cute accent and strong negotiation and leadership skills, feed him attention in measured amounts, and are convinced they know better than him about everything. Padmé and Tarkin (and Obi-Wan, for that matter) all fit this type...

Friendship:

I mean, Vader doesn't really have friends, though. He is capable of forming really intense attachments to a few specific people, and tolerating others because of their competence, but anything in between those ends of the spectrum? Doesn't really compute. Vader does not chill or hang out or make pleasant conversation, not a lot of room for friends here.

Even as Anakin, he was a little like this. It was harder to tell, because his social circle was a lot bigger then - there were way more people in the "would die for them" circle, and way more who he went out of his way to be nice to, even if they weren't exactly close. But all of these social relationships involve some kind of power relation. Anakin has masters and fellow generals and an apprentice; he has favorite loyal troops and a favorite droid; he has a Supreme Chancellor who is being very nice to him for some reason. These are all people he works with, or who want something from him; he doesn't really have anyone he hangs out with just for the sake of hanging out with them. Padmé is the closest he gets to that, and even with her, he’s acting out a romantic role in the way that he thinks is expected of him so that he’ll deserve her love. (And doing a bad job of it, because Anakin is awkward, but never mind.)

Anakin has a huge heart and many attachments, don't get me wrong. But I don't think he's ever fully grasped the idea of a social connection that doesn't revolve around one of the people involved being useful to the other.

Quirks/Hobbies:

(I already did a “workshop/tinkering” one, so here’s a “flying” one...)

Vader's special experimental prototype TIE fighter is in constant need of repairs because of how recklessly he flies. It's not even that he crashes into things - it's just wear and tear because you're not actually supposed to yank the throttle that hard every damn time you turn the ship, Lord Vader, seriously how are you not passing out from those g-forces.

Vader is genuinely confused why the techs keep complaining. Podracers are used to having to rebuild their entire pod after every race. By that standard, he's doing great.

Childhood:

Tiny little bb Anakin wasn't actually any angrier than normal, at least by the standards of traumatized child slaves. Like, he was about at par. There were plenty of angrier ones. You couldn't have looked at him, in comparison to the other child slaves doing similar jobs in Mos Espa, and said "oh yeah that one in particular is gonna have anger and attachment issues."

He did stand out from the other kids, though, on account of just being a weird little nerd. He built a whole droid and a racing pod by himself and his master didn't even make him do it! He keeps talking about how he's going to be a Jedi and fly all around the galaxy and save the planet and marry a queen, when everybody knows there are at least three good reasons why that's wrong. He thinks random customers who come into his shop are his new friends! Anakin is just... weird. Off in his own little world. The other local slave kids know not to be too mean to him because he will always help you out in a pinch, and he is really good with machines, but other than that, I dunno, would you wanna hang out with Mr. I’m Gonna Be A Special Jedi?

Shmi sees this dynamic happening, but there's not much she can do, except to give Anakin all the love and reassurance that she wishes he was getting from his peers.

Cooking/Food:

Idk the Wookieepedia says that Vader can eat nutrient paste out of a straw in his mask if he wants to, but he doesn't want to because it tastes awful. So my questions here are (a) considering everything else they have to do, how can the suit's recesses possibly fit enough nutrient paste inside them for Vader's needs, and (b) seriously we're how many years in the future and we can't even make a nutrient paste that tastes good? We haven't even hit on "bland"? For the Emperor's chief enforcer, whose personal care budget is virtually unlimited? Yeah no, I'm calling canon error on this one. He can't eat, or it's too much trouble to get food into him with the other life support, so he's tube-fed. That's my headcanon.

Appearance:

Vader is very muscular. (This isn't really a "head"canon? He's literally played by a bodybuilder? But some fans disagree, so, eh.) He was already tall and strong when he was Anakin, but the suit adds height and it adds a LOT of extra weight that he has to be able to carry around with him literally every time he moves.

His recovery process after Revenge of the Sith involved having to learn how to move again, with new prosthetic limbs and horrifying new chronic injuries, basically from the ground up, and having to do it well enough that he could sword-fight Jedi Masters to the death, and he had to put on a ton of muscle in order to do that.

Palpatine was very strict in the nutrition and exercise regimes he imposed for this purpose. I have a sneaking suspicion that steroids were also involved.

[everyonewasabird]

Brickclub 2.1.5 ‘The quid obscurum of battles’

It’s hard to talk clearly about a chapter about muddle.

- The descriptions of the uniforms remind me of The Year 1817 in terms of being a solid block of text throwing a lot of images at us of past things that were in living memory at the time this was written and are impossibly distant now. It’s effective in the same way: as an overwhelmingly complicated image that comes at you all at once.

- Hugo’s musings on the variations in types of mud reminds me of the sewer digression, which feels very present here. His mention of how slight differences in the way soil reacts to water cause more troops to be needed and the way blood flows illogically is yet more Chaos Theory. Valjean will fall afoul of this mud much more viscerally later--which brings up the visual metaphor raised last chapter of an army as a strong man’s body.

- I love the point that the middle of battle has no narrative. Writers and historians will later use the beginning and end form it into narrative, but that narrative will always be somewhat false. It could really have gone the other way, and there is at least as much truth in that shifting uncertainty as there is in the narrative that cements around explaining whatever the ending was. It’s part of the conversation of Providence vs. Fatality, which @fremedon​ points out is intrinsic to how Hugo talks about destiny as described in the preface: everything is the push and pull between the two, and either one can always rule the day.

This brings up a lot about the structure of stories for me, and of this story in particular. Les Mis does in fact have a long and chaotic middle, and you’d be very excused for not having any idea where it was going while you were reading it. And more importantly, it has a very strange ending.

That the chaos of the middle is important in itself, and the ending doesn’t impose meaning on that chaos, perhaps expresses some of the paradox of this text. Les Mis has the wrong ending: the heroes were heroic (and necessarily brutal, but not less heroic) and then they were massacred, the protagonist got confused and let a saint die whom he might have saved, the tide of bourgeois conservatism covered over everything again, and if any lessons were learned, we sure didn’t see much about it.

And you can go back over the text, as the musical does at least a little, as many people do, as I used to do before I understood the text better, and believe that the ending of the story expresses its theme: that Revolution was maybe a step too far, that Marius and Cosette lived happily ever after, that Hugo’s ultimate proposal for humanity’s betterment is some middle road.

And it’s not. Its Revolution, as he says both explicitly and symbolically many times over.

But if you tend to believe the endings of things over their middles, you might miss that. The narrative you get if you draw a smooth line from the gentle priest at the beginning to the bourgeois happy ending is a lie. Much of the truth of the book is found in the obscurity of the middle.

[agentsquirrelsgotrobots]

By the way, this aligns with my Cody as an outlier headcanon. But it works with Canon Cody, too.

Cody didn't know what to do.

One minute, he was stargazing with Boulder, naming constellations and listening to the music coming from Boulder's radio. The next, he was waking up in a troop carrier, Boulder unconscious and tied down to the cargo bay.

But that wasn't the most pressing part.

Every person in the helicopter was armed with a machine gun, belts of ammo slung around their waists.

They had no symbols on their identical uniforms and didn't speak. The only one without a mask was a scary, scarred up older man, muscular and mean looking.

He took pictures of him, turning his head this way and that with a rough, gloved hand. He made Cody state his name and age to an old camrecorder.

That was another thing. Everything was as low tech as possible, except the guns and the leader's flip phone, likely a burner.

Whoever these guys are, they weren't rookies. They acted professional and didn't comment on taking a kid.

Then, the leader introduced himself.

"Cody Burns, I am Silas, and this," He said, posturing with a smile on his scarred face. "Is MECH."

Cody remembered what Chase had said about hostages. The more information they tell you without talking a ransom, the less likely you are to make it out alive.

That's the thing. Cody had been taken before. Quarry and Morocco had taken him briefly, but this was different.

Quarry had treated him well, leaving him with a cold gallon of water to ward off dehydration and heat stroke. Cody never felt like he was in real danger, and Quarry made it clear that if he had succeeded, Cody would have been returned to his family.

Morocco was different, but he still didn't intend to hurt him beyond the brainwashing. He walked away with some nasty bruising from being in Morbot, but both he and Morocco's lawyer agreed that pressing charges was a waste of time.

Silas was different. He felt more cruel, like nothing Cody could do would matter. It was possible that a ransom wasn't even an option.

Cody eyed the guns again. They were just as menacing and deadly as the last time he looked at them.

The troop carrier landed, and Cody was marched into an abandoned looking hanger. To his horror, there were already three bots inside.

A short, blue bot was stuck to the floor with thick, organic looking webbing. An impatient spider bot gave him a cruel smile.

"Aw, look at that. Silas, you shouldn't have! More prey to add to my hunt!" Her voice was sweet and soothing, in contrast to her predatory gaze. Cody shivered.

"No Arachnid, this one has a purpose." Silas brought Cody to a small office overlooking the hanger. "You see Cody, I have watched you ... direct these titans. They follow you without question, without hesitation. I want you to show me how you do it. How do you control the titans."

"I don't! They just trust me! I have known them since I was eight, I am eleven now, we just got to know each other!"

"I don't think so. Gentlemen, roll the footage." Silas commanded, sitting Cody in a rolling chair and turning it towards the massive screen that took up the back wall.

Cody watched a normal rescue play out, him giving advice and orders and the rest of the bots following it as normal. "I don't see what you see, Silas." Cody said, shrinking under his cruel glare.

"No, it's right there. The titans' eyes change color!" Silas said, pointing at Boulder's face.

"They have different colored eye lenses depending on the type of surveillance needed. He just went from heat seeking to normal view and back again as he scanned for survivors. They aren't sentient anyway. I stole my brother's bot. They are just DOD rejects that were rehabbed for rescue work and sent to their usual dumping ground for projects that had too much money put in them but failed. They aren't titans. They are military rejects."

"Cody, that's a lie and you know it." Silas said.

Cody shrugged. "Worth a shot. Could you just send in a ransom now?" He said, trying to keep the fear out of his voice.

"Arachnid, I am done here - where did she go?" Silas barked.

"Sir, she left to continue hunting the two persons of interest." A soldier said nervously, not meeting Silas's eyes.

"Well then, harvest the necessary parts from the motorcycle and put in the ransom letter. I want us out of here and on the move by sunrise."

"Yes, Silas!"

Suddenly, the garage doors were blown open by Arachnid's body being punted into it.

High Tide was here with the rest of Team Prime, and they were PISSED.

Bumblebee freed Arcee, and the two of them chased after the spider, who had slipped away in the chaos.

Optimus yanked the office's window out of its frame in one piece, tucking Cody safely in his chest as Silas fumbled for his machine gun. Cody ducked away from Optimus's windshield as Silas opened fire, the rounds doing nothing against the alien glass. He guarded the windshield anyway, not willing to risk Cody. He swiped at Silas, failing to grab him as he escaped onto the helipad and dived into a waiting helicopter.

Arachnid got away, too, but Arcee managed to cut off one of her legs at the knee. She brought back a thankfully unharmed teenage boy and his mother in her hands, and an agent by the name of William Fowler brought around another troop carrier to take the humans, and a still unconscious Boulder, back to a nearby military base to get checked over by medical staff and arrange a ride back to both Jasper and Griffin Rock.

Boulder was fine, just a concussion and some drowsiness from getting shocked. Both Jack and June had scratches and bruising, but Cody was mostly fine.

He fell asleep in Optimus's passenger seat on the ride back, Boulder resting in his trailer.

They both returned home to many tears from the Burns. Heatwave greeted Boulder with a mug of warm engex for his troubles, and Charlie carried Cody to the couch, not wanting to wake him up to get him into his own bed.

Of course, this won't be the last time Cody's supposed supernatural leadership skills will be called into question.

After all, there are always whispers of something dark in the cosmos. With a voice like honey and prose as cruel as a bee's sting, Cody wasn't the only being with a persuasive gift.

Just ask Tarn.

A thing I keep running in my plotlines but

Silas and subsequently MECH learns about Griffin Rock

[creepingsharia]

Georgia: U.S. Army Soldier Arrested for Attempting to Assist ISIS Conduct Deadly Ambush on U.S. Troops, Attack 9/11 Memorial Site

US soldier hoped to team up with ISIS to attack 9/11 Memorial: feds

A US soldier hoped to team up with ISIS to launch a terror attack on the 9/11 Memorial in Manhattan, calling the sacred site “a key target,’’ according to explosive court papers Tuesday.

Army Pfc. Cole James Bridges — a 20-year-old cavalry scout from Ohio — allegedly thought he was plotting with a member of the terrorist group while discussing attacking the Sept. 11 memorial.

His supposed ISIS cohorts were actually an undercover FBI worker and confidential informant, the feds said.

Bridges described how an assault on the memorial at Ground Zero “could honestly be a sniper kill and then getting out quietly for a second attack,’’ according to Manhattan federal-court papers.

The documents included a profile photo of the Stow, Ohio, suspect on one of his social-media accounts in August wearing traditional Muslim head garb.

The filing also contained a posting on the same account that month featuring a quote by a jihadist leader whose followers included one of the hijackers of the plane that crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

“Everyone has to see which side he is on,” the quote reads in part.

While becoming radicalized online, Bridges researched such terms as “badass jihadi,’’ “green beret ambush’’ and “us soldier shooting’’ in late 2019 and through 2020, the papers said.

At one point, he allegedly admitted to the undercover, “I hate displaying the US flag on my shoulder,’’ apparently referring to his military uniform.

Bridges, who was with the Third Infantry Division out of Fort Stewart in Georgia, sought to even help ISIS attack his US comrades in the Mideast, authorities said.

His sick efforts included providing part of an Army training manual and combat-instruction video in a bid to help the terror group kill as many US soldiers as possible, officials said.

“Fortunately, the person with whom he communicated was an FBI employee, and we were able to prevent his evil desires from coming to fruition,’’ FBI Assistant Director William Sweeney Jr. said in a statement.

There were “diagrams that Bridges created demonstrating specific tactical maneuvers and strategy that ISIS should employ against U.S. forces, including rigging a compound with explosives for detonating when U.S. soldiers entered,” court papers alleged.

The documents included drawings that Bridges allegedly sent to the undercover agent showing a “ ‘bottleneck’ tactic” his unit would use “to create a ‘kill zone.’ “

The homegrown terror suspect even starred in a video he made for ISIS, authorities said.

Bridges “created a video for use by ISIS as propaganda, in which [he]  appears in front of a jihadist flag, wearing body armor and speaking through a voice changer, and makes statements celebrating the anticipated ISIS attack on U.S. soldiers that [he] attempted to facilitate,” the feds said.

The turncoat private, who joined the Army in September 2019, “expressed his allegiance to ISIS and its radical jihadist ideology’’ including while he was with his unit at a US base in Germany in the fall, officials said.

The clueless Bridges boasted in the fall how his terrorist leanings were escaping detection by US authorities  — despite the fact that he “used to have connections with people in Hamas and Isis,’’ the documents said.

“The government could have arrested me,’’ Bridges allegedly wrote. “So I needed to prove to them I wasn’t what they thought I was, and I needed the government to get off my back.

“It was never confirmed. They were suspicious,” he said of his allegiance to ISIS and US officials. “Even still because I had homeland security show up to my work before the army.”

Bridges, aka Cole Conzales,  was arrested Tuesday and set to be hauled into federal court Thursday in that state, the feds said.

The suspect faces charges including providing material support to a foreign terror organization and the attempted murder of US servicemen.

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

More via the DOJ press release

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/us-army-soldier-arrested-attempting-assist-isis-conduct-deadly-ambush-us-troops

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE       

Tuesday, January 19, 2021           

U.S. Army Soldier Arrested for Attempting to Assist ISIS to Conduct Deadly Ambush on U.S. Troops              

Provided Tactical Guidance in Attempt to Help ISIS to Attack U.S. Forces in the Middle East

Cole James Bridges, aka Cole Gonzales, 20, of Stowe, Ohio, was charged by complaint with attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization and attempting to murder U.S. military service members.  The FBI and U.S. Army Counterintelligence arrested Bridges today, and he will be presented later today in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia.

Bridges joined the U.S. Army in approximately September 2019 and was assigned as a cavalry scout in the 3rd Infantry Division based in Fort Stewart, Georgia.  Beginning in at least 2019, Bridges began researching and consuming online propaganda promoting jihadists and their violent ideology.  Bridges also expressed his support for the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) and jihad on social media.  In or about October 2020, Bridges began communicating with an FBI online covert employee (the “OCE”), who was posing as an ISIS supporter in contact with ISIS fighters in the Middle East.  During these communications, Bridges expressed his frustration with the U.S. military and his desire to aid ISIS.  Bridges then provided training and guidance to purported ISIS fighters who were planning attacks, including advice about potential targets in New York City, such as the 9/11 Memorial.  Bridges also provided the OCE with portions of a U.S. Army training manual and guidance about military combat tactics, for use by ISIS.

In or about December 2020, Bridges began to supply the OCE with instructions for the purported ISIS fighters on how to attack U.S. forces in the Middle East.  Among other things, Bridges diagrammed specific military maneuvers intended to help ISIS fighters maximize the lethality of attacks on U.S. troops.  Bridges further provided advice about the best way to fortify an ISIS encampment to repel an attack by U.S. Special Forces, including by wiring certain buildings with explosives to kill the U.S. troops.  Then, in January 2021, Bridges provided the OCE with a video of himself in body armor standing before a flag often used by ISIS fighters and making a gesture symbolic of support for ISIS.  Approximately a week later, Bridges sent a second video in which Bridges, using a voice manipulator, narrated a propaganda speech in support of the anticipated ambush by ISIS on U.S. troops.

Bridges is charged in the complaint with (1) attempting to provide material support to ISIS, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2339B, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison; and (2) attempting to murder U.S. military service members, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1114, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.  The statutory penalties are prescribed by Congress and are provided here for informational purposes only, as any sentencing of the defendant would be determined by the judge.

Attachment(s):  Download Bridges Complaint.pdf

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More on the Islamic doctrine that guides people like Bridges/Gonzales via: Another Muslim-American Soldier Turns Terrorist Traitor

All of this goes back to one pivotal Islamic doctrine, known in Arabic as al-wala’ w’al bar’a.  Perhaps best translated as “loyalty and enmity,” this inherently tribalistic doctrine calls on Muslims to maintain absolute loyalty to one another, while hating and seeking to undermine all non-Muslims—“even if they be their fathers, sons, brothers, or kin” (Koran 60:4; 58:22).

In the words of Koran 3:28, “Let believers not take for friends and allies infidels rather than believers: and whoever does this shall have no relationship left with Allah—unless you but guard yourselves against them, taking precautions.”

The words translated here as “guard” and “precaution” are derived from the Arabic word taqu, from the trilateral root w-q-y—the same root that gives us the word taqiyya, the Islamic doctrine that permits Muslims to deceive non-Muslims whenever under their authority.

Ibn Kathir (d. 1373), author of one of the most authoritative commentaries on the Koran, explains taqiyya in the context of verse 3:28 as follows: “Whoever at any time or place fears … evil [from non-Muslims] may protect himself through outward show.”  As proof of this, he quotes Muhammad’s close companion Abu Darda, who once said, “Let us grin in the face of some people while our hearts curse them.”

Muhammad ibn Jarir at-Tabari (d. 923), author of another standard commentary on the Koran, interprets verse 3:28 as follows:

If you [Muslims] are under their [non-Muslims’] authority, fearing for yourselves, behave loyally to them with your tongue while harboring inner animosity for them … [know that] Allah has forbidden believers from being friendly or on intimate terms with the infidels rather than other believers—except when infidels are above them [in authority]. Should that be the case, let them act friendly towards them while preserving their religion.

The significance of Islam’s doctrine of Loyalty and Enmity—which is as ironclad in Islam as the so-called Five Pillars—concerning questions of national allegiance and security can hardly be clearer.

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American patriots - the MAGA / America First types - should be well aware after 15+ years of FBI stings that this is coming to the MAGA movement.

The entire War on Terror playbook has now been flipped to target red-blooded patriotic Americans.

As terror-linked and sharia-supremacist Muslims are prominently placed throughout the Biden administration, the MAGAphobia will reach levels well beyond 9/11 and many citizens will be jailed.