#about them being revolutionary and tender

[didhewinkback]

feel like i’m the only one that thinks the backlash was undeserved, he was being called homophobic and everything like woah 😭

loll i think all the homophobic accusations were from crazies on the internet i never saw those but i do think his quote about gay sex in film was bad and poorly worded and idk how these things work but i was baffled that his team didnt try to correct that or at least better prep him on questions like it knowing he gets accused of queerbaiting just by walking down the street

[slowcatsisland]

Hey, i love your stories, can you do how the warlords (specifically Mihawk, Jinbei, and Crocodile) would react to finding out the reader is a former slave, but the reader is also a warlord themself, it can be platonic or romantic, I don't mind either way.

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Warlords; Involved With A Warlord That’s A Former Slave

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A/N: established romantic relationship (well as romantic as u can get with some of these guys..) Takes place before the Warlord system was abolished. I had a hard time writing this without it sounding too ooc so if u have a different thought abt how some of these warlords would react pls comment and lemme know! I was gonna include Blackbeard but lowkey idek how he’s react I don’t understand him that well and I have free will to not write abt that lil hoe

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Dracule Mihawk: Mihawk was approached by you initially before the two of you became involved with each other. Your abilities and admirable Haki gained you some respect from Mihawk. Particularly your fighting style was something that stood out to him, and he was interested to understand your potential more throughly.

Mihawk’s stoicism and general lack of public presence fit your needs well. Due to Mihawk’s perceptive nature, I’d wager he had suspicions that something happened between you and the World Government because of your obvious aversion to them. Though, lots of people don’t like the World Government, especially pirates so I don’t see him bringing it up unless he was too curious.

Assuming you keep the slave branding covered, Mihawk would only ever see it if you willingly present it to him. I don’t really think that the dynamic between you two will change once he knows. He would probably be more accommodating for you at Muggy Kingdom and understands your character better than he did previously. He himself has his own issues with the World Government and for his partner to be a victim of the conditions that they set up definitely increases his loathing of the world government.

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Bartholomew Kuma: (small disclaimer I’m not too familiar with Kuma’s character either..) Kuma was probably hesitant to become involved with you due to his own enslavement to the World Government both previously and in terms of being a pacifista cyborg as well as being a revolutionary member. Though through small, private interactions over the course of numerous years the two of you had developed a bond.

Once Kuma put his trust in you and knew that while you were a Warlord and pirate; you were also a rare, good person, he was willing to risk confiding in you. He didn’t tell you everything, just a little bit about himself so you were aware of his mixed life. It prompted you to reveal your own checkered past and sorta showed him how similar people become after being affected by the World Government.

You had told him about your previous status as a slave. I feel like Kuma would be disheartened to hear about another’s enslavement, but he would also be able to empathize with you more than most anyone else in the world (as well as he can for a cyborg..) At most I feel like he can only offer you words and wouldn’t be able to take any action for you. Though his tender empathy, even at a distance, is comforting to you.

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Donxuiquote Doflamingo: (literally the worst reaction you could ever hope for. I’m sorry but to me I feel like telling him this is the equivalent to saying that you have a D middle initial in your name. He WILL tweak I promise)

Your relationship with Doflamingo is akin to a give and take rather than an actual companionship. Though there might be what he thinks is love present on his side, it only ever harms you and even others at times. His love is more reflective of a child roughly playing with his favorite toy no matter how tattered it gets. You’re his favorite yes, but for how long? When will he notice the cracks in your paint coating? Or the chipped pieces of your frame?

He was attracted to your abilities and wanted to form an alliance. This alliance did benefit your crew, and granted you more political influence in the world. (Though, I feel like Doflamingo would try to make it physical between the two of you.)

Doflamingo figuring out that you were a former slave wasn’t intended by you. You had wanted to keep that a secret from him as long as you could. You didn’t know how he would react, but you didn’t think it would be good. And it wasn’t good, when he saw the burn seared into your back. The whole world stopped for a moment, nothing heard except your shaky breaths. I feel like this would go either two ways.

Doflamingo would be disgusted. He would feel cheated. How dare you be branded by something other than him, is what he would ask himself. He used to own slaves. He technically still does with his citizens of Dressrosa. He knows their lack of worth, their use to him and his mind would clash that version of inferiority with you instantly. To him, you were less than before but now you’re just a fake pretending to be human and pretending to be stronger than you really are. I feel like his reaction would be violent towards you and he would call off the progression of your alliance immediately.

The other way I see it going (and it’s kinda sick in my mind) is that Doflamingo would feel a new type of ownership over you. He used to authorize people to get that branding on your back. He’d feel like you were reminiscent of his past and his former birth right. I feel like he might try to coax you into becoming a slave for him under the pretense of sympathy and understanding. This would be him playing the long game, trying to break you down enough mentally for you to be dependent on him and he would be able to use you however he wanted. He would also use this information against you too, threatening to reveal it to the public or the government officials. Even worse, the celestial dragons so they could come and take you back.

Disgusting bird this one is

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Hancock Boa: (lowkey I feel like she’s incapable of falling for someone other than Luffy presently but we can ignore that) Boa would only ever try to pursuit a relationship if you had treated her the same way Luffy treated her. If you had shown her a lack of lust and instead genuine affection or kindness, she would be down so bad.

One big milestone in the development of your relationship with Boa was her revealing her own personal enslavement. She told you in desperation of a connection of trust and to try to prove that she wasn’t worthy of you. She was utterly shocked when you turned around and bared your own identical marking to her.

It would cause the two of you to have an intimate bond beyond anything sexual. You validated her and her sisters’ worth and existence. You also showed her that the mark didn’t have to be something to fear and that she could rely on you. I think she would fall in love with you like how she did with Luffy and would defy the World Government not just for herself and her empire anymore, but for you as well.

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Jimbei: I feel like Jimbei would pursue someone with a clear moral scale and have ideals that align with him. (Though he’d probably prefer fishmen so like if you’re human he might not be looking at you like that..) You were an honorable pirate and someone that Jimbei was able to communicate with beyond Warlord meetings. The Sun Pirates would most likely notice the chances of an alliance forming between them and your crew given the praises Jimbei has given you.

It was on an island of neutral ground for the two of you, enjoying the isolation and conversing with one another when it happened. You told Jimbei of your previous enslavement and showed him your branding. It wasn’t really prompted, maybe you wished for Jimbei to talk of the important history of the Sun Pirates and Fisher Tiger. The slavery of fishmen was woven between the threads of the creation of the Sun Pirates. It was a safe space, Jimbei makes you feel safe, so once Jimbei was done talking, you opened up.

Jimbei would feel sympathy for your mark and your story. But he’s also someone who would be quick to acknowledge your strength to overcome it and persevere to the status of Warlord of your own pirate crew. Jimbei ran a hand over the mark softly before thinking of something. He offered to give you the Sun Pirates’ marking over it.

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Trafalgar Law: Law wouldn’t be looking for a relationship until possibly after he is able to complete his goal of avenging Corazon by defeating Doflamingo. Plus you were a warlord with your own crew, so the trust he gave you was scarce if he gave you any at all.

Though, if he did align with your pirate crew and you helped him in his goal he’d have a considerable amount of trust and loyalty towards you for the duration of the alliance. Through this, the two of you gradually became a little closer to each other, divulging in stories of the past and history in the small free time you had. Though you weren’t together and neither of you would mention the kindles of what could perhaps be something more between the two of you.

One late night, you let it slip that you were a former slave. Law paused momentarily before acting unaffected. A silence fell over you two for a couple moments before he mentioned that you were free now. To which you responded with a smile. It wasn’t brought up again, and your alliance ended after the events of Dressrosa.

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Gecko Moria: (guys I don’t like him) Hm. I feel like he would approach you first. Especially in his youth because he was more of a confident pirate before he faced off with Kaido. He had taken a liking to your appearance and your abilities were well suited for tasks in his opinion. I feel like he would propose an alliance with an ultimate goal of obtaining your power for his motives.

I thinks relationship with him would be another one based on mutual contentment, you scratch his big back, he scratches yours. Though, over time I think he would become loyal to you and care for you of his own will, not for the sake of the alliance.

He found out about your enslavement through one of his nosy underlings, maybe Perona. It would reason that you and her were at least acquaintances. I don’t think this would change much for Moria, though he might try to express sympathy for you. Perhaps he might bring it up in hopes you talk about your past to him so he can know more about you and what you’ve endured. He is caring to those who he considers family, and he would be willing to consider you that.

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Crocodile: Crocodile was most likely approached by you. Though being the business man that he is, the only form of entanglement he would engage in would be through a mutual alliance of some sort.

Time may change the context of your alliance with him, and your relationship could grow into something that loosely resembles a carrying couple. Yet while Crocodile has his own secrets you aren’t privy to, he doesn’t enjoy you hiding ones from him, especially if it affects business.

You told him you would tell him a secret if he told you what happened to his hand. It was the amount of whiskey you had earlier in the evening talking, but Crocodile always became rather amused with your drunken ramblings. He made you go first.

He was rather surprised when you told him that you used to be a slave. You had covered your past so well. You were always dressed luxuriously, you surrounded yourself and your crew with powerful people, and you had this air of unassailable confidence that he always wanted to control. It just didn’t fit you, being a slave. When he asked about the marking, you replied that you got surgery to remove it and replace the skin graft of the area it was covering. He could tell you hated that part of your past, and hated the World Government and Celestial Dragons even more. You told him you would wring his neck if he publicized it. Puffing his cigar in your face, he mused before taking a deep sigh and told you about the story of his hand.

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Kinda a long one, I really had to think abt this one but it was fun to write

Mwah 😽

[paranormaljones]

Love and Attraction in My Adventures with Superman

As someone who has never been particularly drawn by superhero media, I wasn't really sure what to expect when I first started watching My Adventures with Superman about a week ago. I had seen a few posts here on Tumblr that had piqued my interest, but all I really knew about it was that it was well-loved and had an art style that I knew I liked.

I absolutely did not expect to fall head over heels for the show entirely, or to be moved to tears multiple times by the wildly sweet, revolutionary relationship between this adaptation's Clark Kent and Lois Lane.

I say "revolutionary" because this romance touches on a lot of things that I feel are lacking in most modern portrayals of romance, and it handles them masterfully.

Most of what I reference/talk about in this post will focus on the first four episodes of season one (with a particular focus on the fourth episode, Let's Go to Ivo Tower, You Say) , because they are my favorite episodes and I think I can communicate what I want to by pulling mainly from those episodes. But I will be pulling bits and pieces from the whole series so consider yourself spoiler-warned.

The main point is this: I absolutely adore the way that physical attraction and emotional attraction are balanced between Clark and Lois.

The fact that this is possible comes from how well-crafted the dynamic is between the two of them; Lois' raw passion and energy inspires confidence and a mutual passion in Clark, and Clark's gentleness and kind heart inspire a tenderness in Lois that she was never given an outlet to show or receive. From this dynamic, a wealth of physical and emotional intimacy is naturally born. But never in the series do the two aspects of attraction feel out of balance; rather, they play off each other effortlessly. When one is brought into focus, the other quickly follows.

From the first episode and onward, it's obvious that Clark and Lois are awed by each other's physical appearance. Lois outright describes Clark as "beautiful" (which, if you saw one of my earlier posts from not too long ago, is something that makes me so incredibly happy to see in mainstream media).

To be fair, she doesn't say that to his face and says it in a moment of extreme frustration. But I still count it.

Anyways.

Upon seeing Lois for the first time, Clark is practically frozen in wonder for a good few seconds.

Lois, too, experiences this initial moment of attraction and almost immediately makes contact, with a playful punch to Clark's chest as he holds the door open for her.

This is a detail I really love, because first of all wow, I aspire to have her level of confidence. But also, it becomes clear early on in the series that Lois expresses herself very physically. She has no qualms regarding physical affection. Clark, on the other hand, is much more reserved and, at first, generally only initiates contact after an invitation from Lois, or after enough time has passed in their friendship for him to know that Lois is very physical and wouldn't have a problem with it.

There is also an immediate emphasis on Clark's concern for Lois' physical well-being. Take a sip of water every time Clark asks Lois if she's okay just in the first episode alone and you will be well hydrated.

Later on in this first episode, while trying to infiltrate a warehouse, Lois confidently asks Clark to boost her up to a window so she can get inside the building. Clark is immediately flustered, showing how much he feels out of his depth even with physical contact that, on the surface, would have no romantic connotations. (But to be fair, Lois is asking him to put his hands around her waist and lift her up when they literally just met like maybe six hours ago. I would be flustered too.)

And when Lois loses her balance and Clark effortlessly catches her, his first response (after blushing, of course) is to ask her:

Even in moments where the romantic tension is thick enough to cut with a knife and Clark clearly knows it, his first priority is to make sure she's okay.

And thus begins one of the strongest underlying themes throughout the whole building-up of their relationship, which is trust.

I'm gonna jump ahead now to the scene that inspired this whole post: the stairwell scene in episode four.

A basic rundown: Clark, Lois, and Jimmy are given an assignment to attend a tech unveiling for the city's top investors at Amazotech headquarters. Lois, naturally, ignores the parameters of the assignment and tries to use it as an opportunity to expose corruption in the city and get her stop-the-presses story. Clark very reluctantly follows her lead, believing that she will get herself into trouble . . . until Dr. Ivo, head of Amazotech, makes a few rude comments about Lois' appearance (Lois doesn't hear these, only Clark). This deeply irritates Clark and prompts him into revealing how much he knows about Dr. Ivo's corrupt business dealings, in an attempt to intimidate the truth out of Dr. Ivo, who responds by having Clark thrown out of the building and into a pile of garbage in an adjacent alleyway. Lois comes to find Clark (who is unhurt) and teases him about whether or not she should let him back in the building, since he didn't follow the assignment. Clark jokes that he doesn't even meet the dress code anymore, revealing that his suit jacket was torn as he was tossed out of the building.

Lois then reveals that she came prepared for this, and tells Clark to "take it off."

Clark immediately becomes flustered again and begins stammering as Lois pulls him back into the building by his jacket, continuing to tease him.

It's in these moments, as you can see, that the lighting of the scene changes. As soon as Lois says "take it off", everything is bathed in a rosy light. This happens frequently between these two; often, when we the audience are seeing one of these characters through the perspective of the other, the lighting takes on a very dreamy quality. This will come up again momentarily.

As Lois and Clark ascend the stairs, Lois removes her jacket and pulls a sewing kit from her pocket, admitting that she carries one on her because she herself has torn a lot of her clothing on her escapades.

The two then sit down on the stairs, and Clark removes his jacket. The lighting changes again, and we see Clark from Lois' eyes. It's clear by the dreamy lighting and the way that Lois blushes and involuntarily chokes out a "Wow . . ." that she is once again awed by him and deeply attracted to him on a physical level.

And this scene represents so much about their growing dynamic. It honestly has me floored.

But before I explain fully, I have to go on a tangent about my beloved Clark.

Throughout the beginning of the series, I believe Clark shows several signs that indicate that he is insecure about his physical appearance. Which you wouldn't expect, right? I mean, look at him. He's objectively a dreamboat. He was designed to be that way.

But at this stage of knowing so little about where he really came from or who he is, I think Clark struggles with not having a way to explain his physique. He admits that he wasn't an athlete in school; he was in the chess club. He doesn't work out as an adult. And yet he has the muscles of a bodybuilder. But, like so many other aspects of himself, he doesn't have a way to explain it. This causes a disconnect in how he sees himself physically; he likely feels as though he doesn't deserve his naturally impressive physique. And you could argue that he even does his best to hide it. As a civilian, he generally wears bulky, layered clothing like sweatshirts and sweaters. He slouches and carries himself in a very inward direction; his shoulders are often forward and his arms close to his sides, as if he is habitually attempting to make himself smaller.

This is one thing that brought me to tears when I saw it. The idea that a person can feel insecure about having physical attributes that would normally be seen as positive (and that they can't explain and/or feel that they don't deserve) is not very well-explored in media, but it is experienced by quite a few people, myself being one of them. But often in the real world when someone attempts to express this kind of insecurity, they are shut down and mocked and told to "be grateful" for what they have because others would envy them. Which I can say from personal experience is unbelievably damaging to a person's self image. So seeing this possibly be represented in Clark Kent himself was incredibly moving to me.

But back to the scene itself.

In the most recent gif above, this is the most vulnerable Lois has seen Clark thus far. What I think is so beautiful is the way that she invites him into this vulnerability by making herself vulnerable first.

Rewind a bit. Outside the building, Lois tells Clark to take his jacket off. Not a big deal, right? It's not like he's not wearing an undershirt. But Clark becomes flustered, not outright expressing that he's uncomfortable with this, but certainly indicating that he's not exactly at ease with it either.

Next we see them climbing up the stairs, and as they do so, Lois removes her own jacket and reveals her bare back to Clark in the process.

I believe this was incredibly intentional. This scene would have carried a very different tone if Lois' outfit was revealing in any other way. But the fact that her back is exposed symbolizes that she trusts him, in a physical and emotional sense. It's like when my cat Penny rolls on her back and exposes her fluffy tummy. Lois revealing this part of herself was her saying "I trust you, I feel safe with you, and I'll be vulnerable with you if you'll be vulnerable with me."

And only after that does Clark remove his jacket.

Because there is the factor of attraction at play, there is a lot of blushing and stammering going on in the beginning of this scene. These are two incredibly attractive people who are incredibly attracted to each other, after all. But immediately after the initial romantic tension, there is emotional vulnerability as well. Lois confides in Clark about her relationship with her dad, and the crippling self-doubt that she has kept very close to her chest. Clark jumps to reassure her in earnest, telling her that she has "changed his life for the better, in every possible way."

And that is what I meant at the beginning of the post when I mentioned balance.

Every moment of physical attraction in this series is followed by or harmonized with a moment of emotional vulnerability. Clark and Lois both invite each other deeper into each aspect of connection, and thus their relationship builds in an incredibly natural and beautiful way.

At this point, I think this post is about five miles long as the crow scrolls and I should probably stop now before all my thoughts run away with me. I could go on forever about the impact that this series and these characters have had on me, though. I will forever be grateful to the creators for giving us such an incredible series, and such a beautiful romance.

[hannahbarberra162]

Under The Microscope, Part 4

on Ao3 18+ MDNI

Links to the other parts

Your hands were violently shaking and your heart was racing in your chest. If Sabo didn’t want money and he didn’t want you for your scientific research, why did he want you at all? You didn’t think he wanted to kill you, he probably would have done that already and not wasted supplies on you. Someone like him didn’t need someone like you for romance, he could have anyone he wanted. Not knowing your purpose made your anxiety skyrocket. Sabo’s eyes flicked to your shaking hands. He reached out and held them in his own gloved ones, keeping them still. 

“Don’t be upset. Nothing will happen to you. I didn’t take you out of that base to harm you.” He spoke to you in a soft tone, like he was gentling an animal. Even though you’d had the same thought yourself, it didn’t make you feel any better hearing it from Sabo. The boat started rocking a little, bringing back your nausea. But you powered through, you wanted some answers only Sabo could provide.

“I don’t - I don’t understand. Why did you take me then?” You tried pulling your hands from his but Sabo didn’t let go. He gripped your hands even tighter, looking you in the eyes.

“I told you. They don’t deserve you. They didn’t value you or take care of you. So I will.” The blood drained out of your face as you realized Sabo had never been joking. He had been serious the entire time, thinking that you were some inept fool who couldn’t take care of yourself. The thought made your face hot with humiliation as his stare bored into your face.

“They did value me. I liked being a Marine,” you rebutted weakly, looking away from his intense stare. You weren’t lying, there were some parts of being a Marine that you’d liked.

“No, they didn’t. You don’t have to be a Revolutionary, but you’re not going back.” You looked away, face getting hotter still. What did he know about you? Your ambitions, your dreams? How could he say with certainty that you’d want to be with your captor and his army? Sabo brought your hand to his face and kissed the back of your hand, breaking you out of your thoughts. His warm lips lingered a bit too long on your skin, like he was savoring the moment. “Try not to worry, it’s not good for your health.” You almost let out a hysterical laugh - worrying was not good for your health? What about being drugged and kidnapped against your will? You yanked your hands back from Sabo.

“So, that’s it then? You’re keeping me at the Revolutionary Army HQ for the rest of my life?” you hissed at him. Sabo was contemplative but still looking at your shaking hands, not upset in the slightest.

“Probably not the rest of your life, we’re going to overthrow the World Government soon enough. Plans might change once we do,” Sabo replied evenly. This time a hysterical laugh did escape from you. He didn’t seem bothered by how upset you were, which was in stark contrast to his tender care of you during the previous days, fretting over your every need. Your stomach lurched again.

“I want my clothes back,” you said in a quiet but angry voice. You didn’t want to be wearing Sabo’s clothes anymore. They smelled and were soaked in sweat but you also wanted to regain a sense of self. You were a Marine, no matter what Sabo thought he could do to you. 

Sabo’s POV

“Oh, they’re gone. I burned them,” Sabo said, still staring at you. He agreed you needed to change clothes, but you’d only be wearing his. At least until you got to the first stopping point tomorrow. Then unfortunately he’d have to provide you with something more substantial to wear. You paled with Sabo’s last statement. Sabo didn’t want to upset you but he needed you to understand in no uncertain terms that your engagement with the Marines was over. Permanently. “I can give you something else to wear, if you’d like. I imagine you want to change after a few days wearing the same thing.” You didn’t answer, Sabo could tell you were thinking over all his words. Still, he got up and went to his trunk, rummaging around for something you could wear. He found a short sleeved tunic he hadn’t worn in months. He grabbed it as well as a fresh towel and washcloth, handing them to you. “Would you like a shower?” He could tell that it caught your interest.

“Yes, please,” you said, taking the bundle from him quickly. You looked ill again, like you were shortly going to be nauseous. Even so, Sabo had noted that your bouts of seasickness were getting farther apart. Maybe you’d be able to go to the top deck by the end of the afternoon.

“Follow me, it’s not attached to this room. It’s communal so let me check first to make sure no one’s in there.” You hesitated, clutching the bundle to your chest. Sabo put his hand on the back of your neck, bringing you warmth once more. “You’re safe,” he stated. “I’ll be with you the whole time.”

“W-what?” you looked at him in shock and tried to shift his hand off of you. Sabo raised an eyebrow and kept his arm in place. 

“You’ve been sick for two days and had to have multiple bags of IV fluids. I can stay right outside the shower door but I’m not going any farther than that.” You looked at him angrily, almost like he betrayed you, and tried handing him back the towel, moving his arm off your neck.

“I don’t want to shower.” Sabo contemplated his choices for a moment. He could force you, could make you shower with him in the room. But that would destroy everything he worked so hard to build. He looked at your face, which was getting paler by the moment. He shifted tactics, gently pushing your hand holding the towel back to you.

“I’ll make a deal with you. If you don’t vomit in the next five minutes, I’ll let you shower completely alone,” Sabo bargained. You looked at him suspiciously but your eyes flicked to the towel in your hands. Sabo knew he’d won this round.

“Ok. But if I don’t throw up, I’ll be alone in the shower? Completely? You won’t be outside the shower door?” Sabo nodded solemnly.

“Absolutely.” You huffed and sat down on the bed. Sabo wasn’t a betting man, but in this case, he wasn’t worried. He watched you clutch at the towel so hard your knuckles were white. You tried closing your eyes and laying back on the bed. None of it helped. You made it two two and a half minutes before he handed you a bucket. By three minutes, you’d vomited. Sabo came up behind you and moved your hair out of your face. He put a warm hand between your shoulder blades after you’d finished, stroking your exhausted muscles tenderly. He was sure you didn’t realize, but once he’d put his hand on your back, you inhaled a deep breath, relaxing a little. Sabo smiled to himself.

“You see? What if this happened in the shower and you were alone? Or if you passed out again? I’m not doing this to be intrusive, I don’t think you can be by yourself right now.” You didn’t reply, just wiped your mouth with the back of your hand, eyes still closed. If Sabo wanted to be intrusive, he would shower with you, he thought. He certainly wanted to. 

“Yeah, I guess,” you said glumly. Sabo dropped it, not needing to prove his point any further. After a moment, you opened your eyes and swung your feet over the bed. 

“Let’s get this over with,” you grumbled.

Your POV

You didn’t want Sabo with you, but you desperately wanted a shower. Maybe it would help you feel like a human being again. He led you to the bathroom, holding the door open for you to enter. You wondered when he’d drop the gentleman routine, he behaved like some noble or something. You fiddled with the towel in your hands.

“Can I at least undress by myself? It…I won’t take long.” Sabo nodded, he hadn’t even entered the bathroom yet. 

“Of course, knock on the door when you’re done. If I don’t hear from you in a few minutes, I’m going to come in.” You were grateful you’d have some privacy, even if it was temporary. Sabo closed the door and you stripped quickly, wrapping the large towel around yourself. You started the shower, waiting for the water to get hot, then knocked on the door. Sabo cracked open the door.

“Ready for me?” he asked. You didn’t answer, just pulled the door open even further. You weren’t ready for him , you were ready for the shower. You felt exposed by wearing so little near him, but you’d lost the bet. The water was steaming so you wanted to get in quickly before the hot water ran out. You opened the wooden shower door, grateful that it would obscure some of your body. Sabo would be able to see you from the calf down and the top of your head, but that was no big deal. You threw the towel to hang over the door and started rinsing the accumulated grime off your body. The hot water was almost too warm for you but you enjoyed the sensation, getting lost in the momentary reprieve from stress and anxiety. 

Someone had left some pleasant smelling soap, shampoo, and conditioner in the shower, the familiar scent of sandalwood and jasmine entering your nose. Where had you smelled it before? You didn’t really care, it was nice enough. Your hair was so tangled, you didn’t think you’d ever be able to get a comb through it again. You tried starting with the ends but you gave up and just threw conditioner in there while you scrubbed your body with the washcloth. Maybe you’d leave it in there and wash it out in the room sink later. You spent a few minutes zoning out and washing, thinking about nothing.

“Everything OK?” Sabo asked. You almost jumped, he had been so quiet you’d forgotten he was there while you enjoyed the water. 

“Y-yeah.” You didn’t want to engage Sabo in conversation while you were still naked. You figured he was telling you to turn off the water, so you rinsed your hair quickly, leaving some of the conditioner in. You were hoping it would work like a leave-in, allowing you to detangle later. Shutting off the shower, you grabbed the towel over the door and wrapped yourself up. You opened the door and saw Sabo leaning against the wall. It wasn’t a large bathroom, you weren’t sure where he’d go when you were changing. But you didn’t even have to ask before Sabo left, telling you to come out when you were done. You tried rinsing off the sudsy washcloth in the sink, but it had cracked, making it non functional. 

After Sabo brought you back to your room, you crawled into the bed. You hadn’t done much but you were exhausted. You wrapped your hair in a towel, you’d deal with it later. You snuggled into the pillow, inhaling deeply. Ah. There was the familiar smell. You’d used Sabo’s toiletries. Well, it was nice that he left them for you. Drifting off to sleep, you hoped you’d get a few hours of rest before the nausea returned. 

You woke up confused. The sun was low in the sky, had you slept all day? You were feeling better, you thought you were mostly done with the seasickness since it was nearly day three. Getting out of the bed, you walked around the cabin, surveying what was there. Sabo was right, this was a small boat without much on it. You knew he’d locked you in before, but out of curiosity you tested the doorknob. It turned. Maybe Sabo had forgotten to lock you in after your shower? Or maybe this was a test to see what you would do? You gnawed on your bottom lip, unsure what to do. Surely he wouldn’t be mad at you for leaving the room, it was his own fault it wasn’t locked. On the other hand, you didn’t really know Sabo at all. Maybe this would set him off and you’d be burned to bits. Deciding to take a risk, you turned the knob slowly, trying to be as quiet as possible. You opened the door, peeking out to see if anyone was watching. No one was there, so you crept along the hallway as fast as you could. Maybe you could find something useful for…whatever your next step would be.

Tip toeing through the hall, you heard Sabo in conversation with a woman through a door that had been left ajar. You hadn’t met anyone else on board, so you weren’t sure who it was. They sounded close, like they’d worked together for a long time. You strained to hear them. 

“- not a good idea, Sabo. What were you thinking?” The woman sounded exasperated.

“I didn’t want to leave her there. She’s a valuable asset.” You couldn’t see him, but you were guessing Sabo’s arms were crossed. You had been right, he wanted you for your research abilities and fruit powers, he lied to you. He probably thought he could get you to do research for the RA, and hiding his motives would help him. 

“That wasn’t the assignment, and you know it. You were supposed to neutralize her, not kidnap her.”

"The assignment was to neutralize the work being completed, not the scientist in charge,” Sabo rebutted. You backed away instinctively. They were casually arguing about murdering you. Leaving the cabin had been a mistake, you didn’t know any of these people or what they were capable of.

“What are you going to tell Dragon? And what are you going to do with her?” Sabo sighed loudly.

“Let me worry about that. She’s mine. And she’s staying with me.”

“On the island?” The woman sounded incredulous.

“For now.” You backed away from the conversation, wanting to get back to the cabin before Sabo saw you were out. Your hands were shaking so hard you were having difficulty working the knob. You finally managed to get it open and dart inside just as you heard footsteps coming down the hallway. You jumped into the bed, trying to look natural. The footsteps stopped outside the door, turning the knob. Sweating, you sat up on the bed, hoping Sabo didn’t come in. You were a bad liar, he would figure out you eavesdropped immediately. But the door never opened, you just heard the sound of the key turning, locking you in again. You weren’t sure that made you feel any more comfortable. You laid in bed for what felt like hours, twisting in anxiety about the conversation you'd overheard. You wanted to know more but weren't sure how to get the information without making it clear you'd listened in. Spying was not in your wheelhouse.

Taking a shaky breath, you reached for the cup on the nightstand and refilled it from the pitcher. Sabo had been bringing them to you to help with rehydration since the previous night. You drained it in one long chug, putting the cup back on the stand. Even though you had slept all afternoon, you were tired again. It made sense, you hadn’t slept for a long time during the storm and while you were sick. You yawned and leaned back on the bed, turning over to your side. You might as well sleep now, you were locked in the room anyway. Nothing else to do, you thought, drifting off.

The next day, you woke up in the late morning. You were warm and cozy, and basked in the feeling. The bed was rumpled, but you sometimes moved around a lot in your sleep, that wasn’t unusual. You stretched and raised your arms over your head, touching your hair. Oh, right. You hadn’t detangled it. It probably looked like a rat’s nest, you really did have to deal with it before it became a problem. You rewet your hair in the small attached sink, hoping your makeshift leave in worked at least a little. You didn’t see a comb or mirror in the room, so you sat on the bed, trying to detangle with your fingers. After a few minutes, you heard the sound of the door unlocking. Sabo came in, bringing with him a tray of food. You hadn’t had solid food other than crackers for days, so the smell of fresh eggs and sausage made your mouth water. Sabo set the tray down, watching you with your fingers in your hair.

“Do you want help?” Sabo asked, removing his top hat from his head. He had a pipe strapped to his back, which you hadn’t seen before.

“Help with what?” You were confused, you weren’t sick. What would he help you with?

“Detangling your hair. I used to do it for my younger brother all the time. He’d get bits of grass, leaves, even bugs in there.” It seemed a little too intimate for a captor to offer to his captive. You tried to decline.

“No, but if you had a mirror that would help.” Sabo frowned at you. 

“Your arms are tired and aching. You don’t have to do everything yourself. Let me help you, you can eat while I work on your hair.” You bit your lip. Remembering the neutralizing conversation from yesterday, you didn’t want to upset Sabo. If this made him happy, it wouldn’t be the worst thing. Besides, he was right, your arms were already aching and you’d barely started.

“Alright. But I don’t have a brush.” Sabo reached into his jacket pocket and brought out a small brush with flourish. You situated yourself on the chair in front of the writing desk and Sabo stood behind you. Picking at the food on the plate, you felt Sabo’s body heat on your back, as he carded through your hair. He started detangling your hair at the ends in the most tender and gentle way you’d ever felt, occasionally massaging your scalp after a particularly knotted section. You nearly moaned from the repeated contact. You knew you were touch starved and lonely but didn’t realize someone taking care of you could bring such satisfaction. You wanted to lean back into him and purr. Your hair was nothing special, but he held it like it was made of gold. You didn’t speak and neither did he. He was absorbed in taking care of your hair and you were glad for the reprieve from awkward conversation.  Once he was done, he kissed the top of your head, took the now empty tray and left the room without another word. Your eyes opened wide, what the hell was that?

Sabo POV

Sabo wanted to claw out his good eye for kissing the top of your head without warning. He didn’t regret it, it had felt so natural and right in the moment. But the look of confusion and alarm you’d had after made him realize his misstep. It wasn’t his fault, really. You’d been driving him wild, it was only natural for his affection to come out somehow. It had been pure bliss to offer you affection and for you to accept it. You’d let him in a slight bit, letting him care for you when you weren’t ill. It was a step in the right direction and he hoped he hadn’t derailed it too much by kissing you afterwards, even if it was on the top of the head. A kiss on the head could be brushed off as platonic, he rationalized.

His feelings towards you were anything but platonic though. When you’d been in the shower, he had been gripping the sink so hard he’d cracked it. He wanted to see your naked form so badly, but he knew it wasn’t the time. He contented himself by wondering what you looked like, what color your nipples would be, how sweet your pussy would taste. There would be a time, hopefully soon, where you would want to show him what you looked like naked and Sabo could hardly wait. He would take all the time you needed, he had plenty of it. While your mind was wandering off, forgetting he was there, he heard you softly humming to yourself. It was so endearing and cute, and Sabo now had evidence that you were feeling protected and safe enough to let your guard down. 

And yes, he had been drugging your water. Not very much, but by the time you’d had four or five cups, you’d be sleepy. It was a little habit forming, but nothing dangerous to your health. He couldn’t help it! After the first time you’d let him hold you all night long, he was addicted. He needed to feel you in his arms, knowing you were safe with him. Sabo loved watching you while you slept, curled up and warm. He purposely kept the window open at night making the room cold, so you would seek his body heat.  You nestled into him like a little cat, rubbing your face on his chest. How could he resist your charm? Besides, it was ok that he drugged you, it was in your benefit. You’d been sleep deprived for so long, this would help you get back to better health. 

Now on the deck, Sabo saw that the boat was finally arriving at the destination, it was time to go. He took his kerchief out of his pocket and got the keys to his room out of his pocket. Re-entering the room, he walked over as you were reclining on the bed, reading the book that he’d left out. It was a history of the Revolutionary Army, maybe you’d find it interesting.

“Time to go, the boat is docking.” You looked up at him, noting the fabric in his hands. “I’m sorry, I need to blindfold you. The locations of RA safe houses are secret.” You looked skittish and if you could have run, you probably would have. Sabo knew he didn’t have to blindfold you, there wasn’t a way you’d get off the island without him. Besides, it’s not like you knew where they were, you’d been completely out of commission during the trip. But Sabo wanted you to rely on him, cementing the idea that you needed him. You swallowed and nodded. Sabo gently but firmly tied the kerchief around your eyes, making sure it was completely blocking your vision. 

“Put your hands in mine, we’ll go slow together.” You blushed at his words, but Sabo hadn’t meant them in any kind of entendre. Still, it was nice to know he wasn’t the only one with romance on the mind. You raised your shaking hands and Sabo took them in his own. He still hadn’t taken off his gloves around you, but it might happen in the future. You clutched at his hands, afraid and unsure, swiveling your head as if you could see. “It’s alright, I’ve got you,” Sabo said softly, his thumb rubbing circles on the top of your hand. He helped you to standing and guided you out of the room. Koala was in the hall, preparing to move her things into the cabin, and gave Sabo a quizzical look. Koala thought this whole endeavor was foolish. Sabo knew she didn’t dislike you as a person, she disliked the deviation from the orders. She would come to see how wonderful you were, just like Sabo had, and she was always nervous around new people. Sabo guided you slowly to the top deck, where the plank to the dinghy was. Every step of the way he verbalized what was happening, to make you feel at ease. “One large step up, we’re at the entrance to the stairs,” he said, moving his hand to grip at your arm. It took a while to get to the deck, but Sabo wanted it to last as long as possible. 

You kept turning your head, trying to get as much information as you could with your limited sensory input but Sabo knew you weren’t getting much. Reaching the gangway, Sabo informed you that you would be carried. Not waiting for a response, he picked you up, causing you to squeak. He’d carry you as much as you’d allow, which didn’t seem to be much. Crossing over to the tiny boat, he sat you in his lap on the dinghy. 

“H-hey, let me sit by myself!” you protested, trying to feel for the seats. Your squirming wasn’t helping his growing erection, he hoped you couldn’t feel it. 

“If you want to be rocked by the waves and vomit all over yourself, sure. If I hold you, I can keep you more secure.” Sabo startled to lift you off his lap, but you stopped him.

“No, it’s OK. I’ll stay.” You already looked a little green, Sabo thought, rubbing your back. Luckily, the trip to the shore was exceedingly short. Sabo carried you off the little boat, sad for the loss of contact. Setting you on the sandy shore, Sabo reached to the tie of the blindfold.

“I’m going to untie your blindfold now. It’s a small island, please don’t try to escape. It won’t work and I’ll have to restrict your freedom more. It will make us both unhappy.” Sabo wasn’t actually worried about you escaping - you were on an uncharted island and even if you managed to get to a boat, your seasickness wouldn’t let you get far. But he still wanted to warn you, just in case. He untied the cloth, folding it back into a square and placing it in his pocket. You squinted, adjusting to the light. You looked around at the island, trying to determine where you were. You saw the little house Sabo had been living in for for about a year.

“Is it just us on the island?” you looked around quickly, probably trying to guess if there were others who could potentially help you.

“No, not just us. I’ll introduce you to my brother, Ace.”

[quinloki]

So we’ve got wbp with marine reader

But what about sabo?

Dragon letting sabo keep his marine prisoner alive so long as they provide information they need

Turning them into a prisoner in his house instead of the revolutionary’s cells. As soon as they give in they can go upstairs! They’ll be the perfect house husband ^^

He can come home to a warm meal he didn’t need to make, the house feels lived in, it’s cozy even, if you forget about the cuff around your leg and the gloved hand around your throat.

-💧

You always come to me with ideas that I have to chew on for a while, because DAMN.

Cw: yandere vibes but oddly sweet?

You’re not any special position in the marines, a deckhand more than anything else. But you were a deckhand on a ship that was carrying precious cargo of some sort - monetary or information it was hard for you to know.

You had ears, sure, but sense enough to feign being deaf, and smarts enough to keep your scuttlebutt to as close to zero as possible.

With no complaints against you, you should get transferred after this, to some nice quiet captain’s ship on the East Blue where nothing really happens.

But as flame erupt all around you, and the shattering planks and the roar of canon fire assails your senses you realize you’re probably not going to see the next sunrise, forget the peaceful waters of the East Blue. All the really strong fighters on the ship were overwhelmed, and sure you can defend yourself, but - again - you’re just a deckhand. It’s maybe your fifth time on a route.

“East Blue, huh?” The voice is amused and there’s a brightness to it that’s out of place in the smoke. It says something else, but you’re too exhausted from trying to survive everything and lose consciousness.

When you come around again you’re tied to a hard metal chair in a cold concrete room with poor lighting and some questionable stains. A young man with wavy blonde hair sits across from you in tailored clothes, a top hat and a smile.

The two of you talk for long enough that you can feel yourself relaxing. He’s not hurting you, and he’s accepting your answers with the calm surety of someone who could read your mind. After a while you decide to not even bother hiding anything from him, and offer up what little information you have.

Maybe that smile will offer you a painless death, because you’re certain at least, that you’re going to die.

Finally he asks a question you didn’t expect at all.

“Are you from the East Blue?”

You blink a moment and then shake your head. “No sir.” You don’t know when you started addressing him so formally but he hasn’t stopped you.

“Tell me why you mentioned it before you passed out.”

“… I was hoping to be transferred there, sir.” You admit plainly. “I’m…” you hesitate but it doesn’t matter at this point. “I’m only in this for a bed and the promise of food, honestly.”

“Oh? If we offered you food and a bed you’d work for us then?” There’s such amusement in his voice, but it seems a little unsettled.

“I think I’d rather retire at this point.” You admit with a sigh. “Besides, I not really skilled at anything.”

“Ah, none of that now.” He says, standing up and pouring a cup of, you think tea, before coming over to you. “Drink up.”

You don’t hesitate, draining the cup quickly. If it was poison you just hoped it was relatively painless, and if it wasn’t then at —

The dizziness hit you hard and he grabs your head, steadying you and keeping your gaze tilted up toward him.

“No more self-deprecation after this, sweet dove.” He says and before you can ask what he means, before you can sort out the tenderness of his endearing term, you succumb to the tea.

When you come around for the second time, you’re more disoriented than before. Your head’s still swimming from the tea, but nothing hurts and you don’t feel sick. The dizzy feeling keeps you laying down, but your eyes focus on the world around you.

It’s comfortable, well lit and whatever you’re laying in is soft and warm. You’re not wearing socks or boots, but there’s simple linen pants and a shirt.

They’re clean, and so are you.

There’s a soft warm scent in the room and as the dizzying feeling passes you’re able to sit up.

It looks like a bedroom. Carpeted floor, vanity, dresser, and books and a bookshelf. If not for the concrete walls you’d think you were at an inn or something.

Moving your legs to sit up you feel resistance on one and realize there’s a padded cuff around your ankle attached to heavy chain, which is itself attached to a heavy steel plate on the floor that’s pretty much the mid-point of the room.

There’s enough length you could comfortably reach everything in this room, and beyond. The door to the room opens and the young man with the wavy hair smiles in greeting.

“Ah, you’re awake. Good morning, dove.” He greets you, stepping in further with a tray of food in one hand. “Let’s get you fed, and once you’re properly awake we can talk about the terms of your surrender.”

[talonabraxas]

Full Moon in Capricorn 🌕 Baphomet ⛧ Talon Abraxas

The Buck Moon In Capricorn Means Big Changes Are Coming For You

The full buck moon in Capricorn occurs on 21st July at 11.17 a.m. The buck moon offers us a chance to reflect and heal through summer. Under this full moon we should take a pause from day-to-day life and allow ourselves to lean into our emotions.

This lunation is the second full moon of the season in Capricorn (the first one was 21st June). This is because the lunar calendar and phases of the moon are not in sync. To differentiate the two, it’s important to note that the full moon on 21st July exists at the 29th degree of Capricorn, while the celestial event on 21st June was at the first degree at Capricorn. The anaretic degree of 21st July's buck moon means that change is critical and will happen as we embrace our fate. There will be endings and new beginnings that will be felt intensely at this time so we should be aware of the impact we can have on others as well as the effect others can have on us. Try to surround yourself with supportive people who have proven they will be there for you.

The full moon aspects revolutionary Uranus in Taurus and dreamy Neptune retrograde in Pisces. The alchemisation of these two planets with the moon in Capricorn brings a transformative vibe that will shift our sentimental core and we may feel lost in our emotions throughout the day. Old wounds and traumas are resurfacing, reawakening our hearts to the pain we experienced in the past. However, we can now harness our wisdom and strength to understand such sensitivities. Doing so allows us to learn about ourselves more deeply and know how to take steps towards alleviating our suffering.

Powerful asteroids Eris and Chiron (both in Aries) square the full moon, blending upheaval and healing. We will search for alternative methods to mend our hearts and spirits as we move towards a better state of being. We may want to see the results fast but it’ll be just the first step forwards in a long journey ahead. We mustn’t rush the process and give ourselves compassion. Patience is critical so we should embrace a gentler approach to matters with others, especially ourselves.

The fixed stars Albireo and Altair (both of whom fall at the early degrees of Aquarius) are in close orbit to the full moon, warning us of how we handle our personal affairs. We shouldn’t take out our frustrations on others: This may have dramatic consequences including reputation-damaging public disputes. If you’re feeling a certain way, journal your thoughts, discuss them with a professional therapist, a friend or a family member you trust. Do not attack others on social media (even though the temptation will be high). It’s also advisable to offer advice only when it is solicited and to do so without judgment. Give others the same level of affection and respect that you would like for yourself.

The planets are very active on 21st July. The Cancer sun harmonises with Neptune retrograde in Pisces, bringing empathy, tenderness and gentleness to our hearts. Mercury in Leo squares Uranus in Taurus, offering us new insights. Venus in Leo and Jupiter in Gemini spread love through meaningful and poetic affirmations. Lastly, Mars in Gemini connects with Pluto retrograde in Aquarius, giving us confidence and boldness. The following day, the sun enters Leo, urging us to lead with our hearts.

Our words and actions have a more significant impact than we know. One thing leads to another so it’s vital that we look within ourselves and emotionally evolve at our own pace. Yes, we can transform the world. But it starts with us. Take a look at yourself and make the change.

[dailyanarchistposts]

Militant about joy

We want to connect joy to militancy for a number of reasons. We are interested in how the capacity for refusal and the willingness to fight can be enabling, relational, and can open up potentials for collective struggle and movement, in ways that are not necessarily associated with control, duty, or vanguardism. We want an expansive conception of militancy that affirms the potential of transformation at the expense of comfort, safety, or predictability. A common definition of militancy is to be “vigorously active, combative and aggressive, especially in support of a cause.”[29] We are interested in the ways that putting joy into contact with militancy helps link fierce struggle with intense affect: rebellions and movements are not only about determined resistance, but about opening up collective capacities. With joyful militancy we want to get at what it means to enliven struggle and care, combativeness and tenderness, hand in hand.

However, the historical associations and current renderings of militancy are complex. Historically, militancy is often associated with Marxist-Leninist and Maoist vanguardism, and the ways these ideologies have informed revolutionary class struggle and national liberation struggles. These ideals of militancy have been challenged, especially by Black, Indigenous, and postcolonial feminists, who have pointed out the pitfalls of rigid ideology, patriarchal leadership, and the neglect of care and love. The traditional figure of the militant—zealous, rigid, and ruthless—has also been challenged by situationism, anarchism, feminism, queer politics, and other currents that have connected direct action and struggle to the liberation of desire, foregrounding the importance of creativity and experimentation. From this perspective, the militant is the one who is always trying to control things, to take charge, to educate, to radicalize, and so on. This kind of militant tends to be two steps behind transformations as they manifest themselves, always finding them lacking the correct analysis or strategy, always imposing a framework or program.

The contemporary discourse of counterterrorism associates figures of militancy with ISIL,{2} the Taliban, and other groups named as enemies of the United States and its allies. In this way, the specter of the “militant extremist” helps justify further militarization, surveillance, imperialism and Islamophobia. The suspected presence of one militant is enough to turn a whole area into a strike zone in which all military-aged men are conceived as enemy combatants, and everyone else as collateral damage. Within this discourse, the militant is increasingly the ultimate Other, to be targeted for death or indefinite detention. In all of these representations—from the Maoist rebel to the terrorist extremist—the figure of the militant tends to be associated with intense discipline, duty, and armed struggle, and these ways of being are often posed in opposition to being supple, responsive, or sensitive. It’s clear that militancy means willingness to fight, but in its dominant representations, it is cold and calculating.

At the same time, there are other currents of militancy that make space for transformation and joy. When we interviewed her, queer Filipino organizer Melanie Matining spoke about its potential to break down stereotypes:

The word “militancy” for me is a really, really hard one. It was used a lot in Filipino organizing. I would always connect it to the military industrial complex, and I didn’t want to replicate that. And then as I started peeling back the actual things we need to do… As an Asian woman, to be militant—that’s really fucking rad. It breaks down sterotypes of submissiveness. The concept of militancy is a new thing for me, and to embrace it I’m unpacking notions of who I’m supposed to be.[30]

Artist and writer Jackie Wang argues that militancy is not only tactically necessary, but transformative for those who embody it. In the context of anti-Blackness in the United States, Wang shows how the category of “crime” has been constructed around Blackness and how mass incarceration has led to a politics of safety and respectability that relies on claims of innocence, contrasted implicitly with (Black) guilt and criminality. Rejecting the politics of innocence means challenging the innocent/criminal dichotomy and the institutionalized violence that subtends it. This form of militancy, Wang argues, is “not about assuming a certain theoretical posture or adopting a certain perspective—it is a lived position.”[31] Drawing on Frantz Fanon, Wang writes that militancy has the capacity “to transform people and ‘fundamentally alter’ their being by emboldening them, removing their passivity and cleansing them of the ‘core of despair’ crystallized in their bodies.”[32] Living militancy, from this perspective, is inherently connected to a process of transformation that undoes the knot of subjection around innocence, challenges the carceral logics of anti-Blackness, and opens up new terrains of struggle.

When we asked Indigenous political theorist Glen Coulthard about his conception of militancy in the context of Indigenous resurgence, he called it an “emergent radicalism” that destabilizes relations of domination.[33] Coulthard’s work focuses on Indigenous resurgence and resistance to settler colonialism. He reveals the ways that Empire represents Indigenous peoples’ oppression as a constellation of personal failings and “issues” to be addressed through colonial recognition and reconciliation. He also focuses on Indigenous refusal and resistance, the revaluation of Indigenous traditions, and a rise in Indigenous militancy and direct action. Militancy, in the context of Indigenous resurgence, is about the capacity to break down colonial structures of control, including the state’s monopoly on the legitimate use of force; it is a break with the colonial state’s attempt to subjugate Indigenous people and ensure continued exploitation of Indigenous lands. This emergent militancy isn’t based on a single program or ideology, but comes out of relationships, as Coulthard says:

It’s emergent in the sense that it’s bottom-up. But it also emerges from something, and that’s those relationships to land, place, community. So that is the emergent part. Emergent doesn’t mean entirely new, because those relationships to place are not new. They’ve always been there, and are always re-emerging. It comes in cycles. The always-there emergent militancy is acted on through management strategies, recognition and accommodation, whatever. That has its effects: it dampens the crisis, it overcomes contradictions temporarily. And then the militancy will emerge again. And we’ve seen this four or five times in the last half-century, these series of containment/management strategies. …What’s always prior is agency of Indigenous peoples, and capital and the state are constantly on the defensive, reacting. As opposed to thinking that we’re always reacting to colonialism, when we privilege it. It’s this resurgent Indigenous subjectivity that the state is constantly trying to quell or subdue. And it’s successful, but never totally successful. And it boils over, comes to the surface, and some new technology is deployed in order to manage it, and reconciliation is the latest tool that is doing that work. But it’s always because of our persistent presence: we’ve never gone away and we’ve been articulating alternatives in words and deeds.[34]

This conception of militancy as emergent is important because it doesn’t come out of thin air, or from an enlightened vanguard of militarized men who suppose that they can see things more clearly than common people. It comes out of the ongoing refusal of Indigenous peoples to give up their ways of life. As Kiera Ladner and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson write in their introduction to This is an Honour Song,

The summer of 1990 brought some strong medicine to Turtle Island. For many Canadians, “Oka” was the first time they encountered Indigenous anger, resistance and standoff, and the resistance was quickly dubbed both the “Oka Crisis” and the “Oka Crises” by the mainstream media. But to the Kanien’kehaka (Mohawk) people of Kanehsata:ke, who were living up their responsibilities to take care of their lands, this was neither a “crisis” at Oka, nor was it about the non-Native town of “Oka.” This was about 400 years of colonial injustice. Similarly, for the Kanien’kaehaka from Kahnawa:ke and Akwesasne who created “crises” by putting up their own barricades on the Mercier Bridge or by mobilizing and/or mobilizing support (resources) at Kanehsata:ke, this really had nothing to do with Oka, a bridge or a golf course. This was about 400 years of resistance. Like every Indigenous nation occupied by Canada, the Haudenesaunee have been confronting state/settler societies and their governments since those societies began threatening the sovereignty, self-determination, and jurisdiction of the Haudenesaunee. It was not a beginning. Nor was this the end. This was a culmination of many, many years of Onhkwehonwe resistance resulting in a decision to put up barricades in defense of, and to bring attention to, Haudenesaunee land ethics, treaty responsibilities, and governance.[35]

Indigenous resurgence and events like Oka are not joyful in the sense of being happy, but in the sense that they are deeply transformative and able to catalyze solidarity across Turtle Island. But unlike Marxist conceptions of militancy in which the vanguard is supposed to usher in a global revolution, it is clear that Indigenous struggles do not implicate everyone in the same way. As it breaks down colonial structures of control and dispossession, Indigenous resurgence implicates us, as settlers, in complicated ways: it unsettles us and our relationship to land and place, and throws into question received ideas about who we are, our responsibilities and complicities, what it means to live here, and our received ideas about what “here” is. It compels us to learn, together, how to support Indigenous resurgence and resist settler colonial violence.

Joyful militancy has also emerged in spaces where people generate the capacity to move with despair and hopelessness, to politicize it. In her study of the queer movement ACT UP, queer theorist and activist Deborah Gould shows how their militant tactics not only won institutional victories that prolonged and saved lives; they were also a process of world-making:

From its start and throughout its life, ACT UP was a place to fight the AIDS crisis, and it was always more than that as well. It was a place to elaborate critiques of the status quo, to imagine alternative worlds, to express anger, to defy authority, to form sexual and other intimacies, to practice non-hierarchical governance and self-determination, to argue with one another, to refashion identities, to experience new feelings, to be changed.[36]

The militancy of ACT UP was not only about a willingness to be confrontational and defy conventions of straight society and mainstream gay and lesbian politics; the movement also created erotically-charged queer atmospheres and sustained networks of care and support for members who got sick. Catalyzed by grief and rage, it blew open political horizons and changed what was possible for people to think, do, and feel together.

When we asked the Argentina-based intellectual Sebastián Touza about militancy, he discussed the danger of defining it once and for all:

I don’t know if militancy can be defined “as such.” Probably it is not a good idea to define it that way because that would entail a general point of view, an interchangeable and abstract concept, valid for all situations. But, on the other hand, I would say that a militant is somebody who struggles for justice in the situation … Thus we have to pay attention to the situation, to the encounters that take place in it, to how meaning is elaborated there, to the subjectivities that arise as a result of those encounters.[37]

This “situated” militancy does not start from a prefabricated notion of justice. It is an attempt to intervene effectively in the here and now, based on a capacity to be attuned to relationships. An example of this could be Touza’s discussion of the struggle of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, a feminist organization that formed in resistance to military repression in Argentina in the 1970s:

Mothers grew up not from strategic plans but from below: from the pain of mothers seeking to recover their children who had been kidnapped, tortured, and “disappeared” by the state. Because they have not separated affects from political activity, Mothers never consider each other means toward ends. Nobody has to be subordinated to strengthen the organization. Rather, they regard each other as ends in themselves. What bonds them together is not an idea but the affect, love and friendship that arises from supporting each other, sharing intimate emotions, moments of joy and sorrow. They organize themselves through consensus, understood not as a system of decision-making or conflict resolution, but as a direct engagement with the lives of one another. As in a now long established feminist tradition, for them the personal is political. Mothers guide themselves by an ethics of intimate conviction whose exercise cannot be detached from everyday life. They have a profound distrust of ideologies and party lines and are proud of their autonomy from the state, political parties, unions and NGOs. Their autonomy does not consist in fighting against a dominant ideology, which might summon the need for the specialized knowledge of a vanguard party, but rather … in the affirmation of liberating aspects of popular culture that already exist among them.[38]

The Mothers are a powerful example of how militancy often springs from everyday life and the bonds of kinship, rather than abstract ideological or moral commitments. These struggles eventually waned or were absorbed by Empire, at least partially. The Argentinean government eventually began using the discourse of human rights and began to offer money and services as an attempt to relegitimize the state and regain control, causing deep divisions between the Mothers and other movements in Argentina.[39] The Canadian government used treaty negotiations, reconciliation discourses, and other formal processes in an attempt to quell Indigenous resurgence and militancy. As Coulthard explains above, new forms of militancy tend to provoke new strategies of containment and absorption by the state, leading to the invention of new forms of struggle. None of these movements stayed frozen in one form: in various ways they transformed, dissolved, shifted, or were institutionalized. But the fact that Empire always invents new forms of containment is not evidence that movements have “failed” or that they were misguided. Joyful transformation sometimes ebbs and flows, becomes captured or crushed, grows subtler or percolates into everyday life, but always re-emerges and renews itself.

Militancy is not a fixed ideal to approximate. We cannot be “like” a militant because militancy—in the way we conceptualize it here—is a practice that is based in the specificity of situations. We cannot become these examples, nor should we look to them as ideals. Rather than boiling joyful militancy down to a fixed way of being or a set of characteristics, we see it arising in and through the relationships that people have with each other. This means it will always look different, based on the emergent connections, relationships, and convictions that animate it.

In relation to this, we believe it is important to hesitate, lest our understanding of militancy become another form of rigid radicalism. Not everyone we spoke with has been enthusiastic about this word. For instance, in our interview with them, writer and artist Margaret Killjoy was ambivalent, emphasizing its connection to armed struggle:

I guess I see it as being someone who is “actively” involved in trying to promote radical social change, and in a non-reformist way. It’s dangerous as terminology … I don��t use it much myself … because of course the first implication it seems to have is that of armed struggle, which is far from a universally applicable strategy or tactic.[40]

We hope that joyful militancy allows for questions and uncertainties that are too often smothered by conventional conceptions of militancy. We also recognize that many will still prefer different language. We are not suggesting that all joyful struggles share an ideology, a program, or a set of tactics. What the above examples have in common is that they express a form of militancy that is attuned to their local situations and arises from people’s needs, desires, and relationships. What we are calling joyful militancy is not a shared content, though we do think there are some shared values and sensibilities. Rather it is an attunement and activation of collective power that looks different everywhere, because everywhere is different.

Besides these highly visible examples, joyful militancy also lives in art and poetry that opens people’s capacities for thinking and feeling in new ways. It is expressed in quiet forms of subversion and sabotage, as well as all the forms of care, connection, and support that defy the isolation and violence of Empire. It is not a question of being a certain way, but a question of open-ended becoming, starting from wherever people find themselves.

[impossiblesuitcase]

not that i expect Time Magazine to still be kicking 400 years later, but i’m dying to read the inevitable blurb cinder (and kai) (and probably thorne, but his ego is inflated enough as is) would have written about her for the “100 Most Influential People in the World” list. i’m not sure who they would tap to write it (it’s always a previous honoree) or what it would say but that’s the piece of fictional Cinder press I’d personally be most curious about, inspired by your latest anon.

If Thorne is going to be on the list, then I could see him being the one to write Cinder's blurb as often friends or colleagues write it. Besides, if Kai wrote about her it would probably be a straight up love letter. Whoever writes about Kai would probably write about his selflessness in marrying Levana to save his people. For Thorne it would be about rehabilitation and the transition from criminal to hero. Here's a mockup of what Thorne might write about Cinder:

"Licensed mechanic. Revolutionary. Queen of Luna. Political visionary who completely transformed an oppressive regime into a free democracy. An ambassador for peace and rights for all those disadvantaged. Engaged to become the Empress of the Eastern Commonwealth, and all of this by the tender age of 18-years-old. So what are you doing with your life?

I first met Cinder when she broke into my prison cell. She was cynical, sarcastic but mostly--impossibly--hopeful. Being four years older than her, I assumed I would have to guide her with all my worldly wisdom. I soon discovered that I would be the one doing the learning.

Cinder taught me that I could gain more by doing things for others than I ever did just doing things for myself. She taught me that teenagers are just as capable as adults at transforming the world--so long as they don't listen to those adults who say it's impossible. She taught us all that even when everyone is pinning you down, shouting "we don't want you," you can learn to want yourself. To want yourself to prove them wrong.

Revolutionary. Queen. And also a pretty damn good friend. In spite of her impressive resume, she still remains the same person at her core that I first met in that cell; someone ready to hope, ready to befriend, and ready to fight for others. Linh Cinder continues to conquer the world.

(It must be a family thing)."

[justwritingscenarios]

Hi! I was wondering if I could request scenarios 30 for Sabo and Crocodile, the idea of them trying to make their partner calm and whispering in their ears while caressing their body and hair is just so sweet! I'm not sure how u write it but it's a fem reader , thanks:)

HIII, here it is. I write gender neutral so that everyone can identify while reading😘 (no beta reader)

Scenario 10 : "Shh, you're safe. I'm not letting you go."

Crocodile x GN!Reader, established relationship // Words : ~400 // Warning : nudity.

Sabo x GN!Reader, established relationship // Words : ~500 // Warning : reader getting drugged.

Crocodile x Ally ! Reader

“(Name), can I come in?”

“Mmh, yes.”

Crocodile pushed opened the door of the bathroom. Here you were in the tub. He thought a bath would help you relax but your body language said otherwise. Instead of being fully laid, you were sat in the middle of the tub, arms squeezing your legs against your naked chest and eyes fixing the white wall before you. Crocodile knew you weren’t looking at it, you were just lost in your mind.

“Do you wanna talk about what happened?”

Silence was his only answer until you closed your eyes and a tear rolled down your cheek.

“Hey (Name), I’m here.”

The tall man came closer immediately and sat on the corner of the bathtub. You felt his large hand behind your head guiding it till it rested on his tight. Your wet hair drenched the cloth of his pants but heck, it was his last concern. He patiently watched you sob soundless, only shaken by jolts from time to time. His long fingers stroked your hair gently to appease your sorrow.

“Shh, you’re safe. I’m not letting you.”

Crocodile would never tell you how guilty he felt at the moment. When he sent you on that mission, he never forecasted the possibility of you getting caught by Marine’s spies. You were a fighter and had similar injuries before, some worse, but never were you held tied defenceless. It was a terrifying experience and the cause of your distress.

His fingers on your hair went down to your back to gaze over a big purple bruise. His jaw clenched; he’ll make them pay their actions. All of this to get information about him out of you…

“I didn’t tell them anything, I swear.” You had looked up at him. Your eyes were still watery, but you’d stopped crying.

“I know.” He bent to put a tender kiss on your forehead then put his against yours. His eyes were looking deep down yours. “I wouldn’t have blamed you for it if you did. All that matters is that you’re back home.” You nodded and closed your eyes again.

“Don’t worry about anything. I’ll care about you like a Queen.”

Sabo x R.A Informer! Reader

As an informer of the Revolutionary Army, you were sent to find the place slaves were kept before the next slave trade. You did your job and told your contact, and boyfriend, Sabo. But you were eager for more, got too far in the Human Auctioning House and got caught. They even drugged you to be sure you would stay calm and try to escape.

Locked you in a cell for hours before being brought to hell, Sabo and his teammates were right on time to save you before the slave traders marked your skin with the branding iron of the slaves.

You were back at the base, safe and sound. Dizzy, you watched your reflet in the mirror of the bathroom: your pupils were still a bit expanded from the drug. Yet, it wasn’t what you were worried about.

You knew Sabo was waiting for you in your room. He would be mad for you disobeying orders, going in the Auctioning House alone without an escape plan. But better be Sabo than Dragon, so you took your courage at hand and entered your room.

Sabo was effectively there, laid on your bed, fixing the ceiling. Without looking at you, he held his hand out to you. You came in the bed, next to him, your head on his biceps.

“You mad at me, right?”

Sabo sighed. It didn’t reassure you. The blond man turned on his side, to face you. His eyes were shifty.

“I don’t know. A little, I guess. But I am mostly worried.”

“I am fine-“ “You were about to get burned ! When I found you were highly drugged, on your knees, held by two men and a third one was about to use a branding iron on your back, (Name). If we weren’t there on time, you would have been burned.”

Sabo’s eyes were still elusive, so you caught his jaw and forced him to watch you.

“I am safe. Thanks to you. You saved him. And trust me, I have learnt my lesson…” You let go of him, it was your time to have shifty eyes. Sabo understood you didn’t feel good about what happened. His arms snaked around your body, bringing you closer to his own. His warm fingers slid under your shirt and fondled the skin of your back. “They were so afraid… And the smell. I can still smell their burned skins, Sabo… And the drug. I saw the red iron but I couldn’t do anything because of the drug. I was so afraid and I wasn’t even burned… what about the others? The children?”

Sabo thought you would cry but you didn’t. All your sadness and anger were in your voice and your eyes.

“We brought them to safety, and we’ll do anything to help them build a new life.” He marked a pause then pulled up your head so you could be forehead to forehead. “There is too much evil to fight in this world. We won’t be able to overcome every time.  But I can promise you I’ll do my everything to keep you safe. I’m not letting you go.”

[radical-revolution]

“When I was about six years old I received the essential bodhichitta teaching from an old woman sitting in the sun. I was walking by her house one day feeling lonely, unloved, and mad, kicking anything I could find. Laughing, she said to me, ‘Little girl, don’t you go letting life harden your heart.’

Right there, I received this pith instruction: we can let the circumstances of our lives harden us so that we become increasingly resentful and afraid, or we can let them soften us and make us kinder and more open to what scares us. We always have this choice.

If we were to ask the Buddha, ‘What is bodhichitta?’ he might tell us that this word is easier to understand than to translate. He might encourage us to seek out ways to find its meaning in our own lives. He might tantalize us by adding that it is only bodhichitta that heals, that bodhichitta is capable of transforming the hardest of hearts and the most prejudiced and fearful of minds.

Chitta means ‘mind’ and also ‘heart’ or ‘attitude.’ Bodhi means ‘awake,’ ‘enlightened,’ or ‘completely open.’ Sometimes the completely open heart and mind of bodhichitta is called the soft spot, a place as vulnerable and tender as an open wound. It is equated, in part, with our ability to love. Even the cruelest people have this soft spot. Even the most vicious animals love their offspring. As Trungpa Rinpoche put it, ‘Everybody loves something, even if it’s only tortillas. ’

Bodhichitta is also equated, in part, with compassion – our ability to feel the pain that we share with others. Without realizing it we continually shield ourselves from this pain because it scares us. We put up protective walls made of opinions, prejudices, and strategies, barriers that are built on a deep fear of being hurt. These walls are further fortified by emotions of all kinds: anger, craving, indifference, jealousy and envy, arrogance and pride. But fortunately for us, the soft spot – our innate ability to love and to care about things – is like a crack in these walls we erect. It’s a natural opening in the barriers we create when we’re afraid. With practice we can learn to find this opening. We can learn to seize that vulnerable moment – love, gratitude, loneliness, embarrassment, inadequacy – to awaken bodhichitta.

An analogy for bodhichitta is the rawness of a broken heart. Sometimes this broken heart gives birth to anxiety and panic, sometimes to anger, resentment, and blame. But under the hardness of that armor there is the tenderness of genuine sadness. This is our link with all those who have ever loved. This genuine heart of sadness can teach us great compassion. It can humble us when we’re arrogant and soften us when we are unkind. It awakens us when we prefer to sleep and pierces through our indifference. This continual ache of the heart is a blessing that when accepted fully can be shared with all.

The Buddha said that we are never separated from enlightenment. Even at the times we feel most stuck, we are never alienated from the awakened state. This is a revolutionary assertion. Even ordinary people like us with hang-ups and confusion have this mind of enlightenment called bodhichitta. The openness and warmth of bodhichitta is in fact our true nature and condition. Even when our neurosis feels far more basic than our wisdom, even when we’re feeling most confused and hopeless, bodhichitta – like the open sky – is always here, undiminished by the clouds that temporarily cover it.

Given that we are so familiar with the clouds, of course, we may find the Buddha’s teaching hard to believe. Yet the truth is that in the midst of our suffering, in the hardest of times, we can contact this noble heart of bodhichitta. It is always available, in pain as well as in joy.”

Pema Chödrön - The Places that Scare You

[xiaolanhua]

So here are my thoughts about In Blossom!

This post may have some spoilers!

I finished watching it yesterday and decided to make a post about my opinions while the drama is still fresh in my mind.

So, the drama made me interested from beginning till the end and overall it's great! It's nothing really revolutionary in terms of plot/story (historical dramas tend to have some similar stories) but it delivered what was promised: mystery, romance, investigation, a bit of thriller with amazing shots and gorgeous costumes!

About the leads:

Liu Xue Yi as the male lead really raised the level of this drama. His performance was one of my favorite things while watching it and i'm so grateful to whoever casted him as the lead because he deserves it (enough with playing the bad guy who never gets his happy ending or the girl 🥲).

At first, I was a little bit concerned about watching because I wasn't a fan of Ju Jing Yi's acting from the dramas I've watched with her but after finishing this one I think she made a solid performance (it's not the best one but definitely her best one yet) and it didn't compromised the drama at all. I've seeing a bunch of not so nice comments towards her specially because people were not happy with the actress "swapping" and although I think the "original" Yang Cai Wei did a great job I'm still satisfied with how things turned out and I like both "Cai Wei".

About the main couple:

For me, it's really poetic how Pan Yue loved Cai Wei since childhood, got to reunite with her after 10 years from being apart of each other, to think he finally married her and then "she" dies on the eve of the wedding, and how he goes insane about her death that get white strokes on his hair and goes on a mission to know who is behind her murder WHILE Cai Wei it's alive by his side but with the face of someone he despises (Shangguan Zhi) and when they start to work together on the cases, they begin to be close to each other and he hates himself for developing feelings for Shangguan Zhi thinking he's betraying Cai Wei's memory. It get's even better because he's falling in love again as she's behaving like the Cai Wei he knows so he get's even more confused and watching all of this was a delight!

They had chemistry, their scenes were fun, interesting, tender and sometimes even hot so it's a win for me actually.

About the second couple (SPOILER!!!!):

Their interactions were pretty cute and they had chemistry but it's a shame what happened to them, specially with Lan Jiang (he deserved better). I always felt that they were a "doomed" couple and I'm sad that I was right about it, my heart hurts for them both as the characters themselves and the ship that didn't sail.

About the cases and the story:

Another thing i liked about this drama is how the cases were introduced, they were directly or indirectly related to the main "mystery" and every case were solved so they didn't left any loose ends. Some dramas of this genre tend to abruptly solve the cases and they end up not adding much to the narrative so I'm glad this were not the case here.

The pacing of the drama was pretty good but I do feel like the last two episodes were a bit rushed. We can't have it all, can't we?

The ending was good as expected (not for some characters I would say) but still good. SPOILER!!! I liked that the cliffhanger did not affected the characters so it could have a second season if the producers wanted but it's not necessarily needed (My Journey to You can't relate).

Overall, it was a pleasant watch so I rate 8.9 out of 10. It's not perfect but I would totally recommend!

[formulatrash]

What's your take on the hockey booktok thing? Since you mentioned it on twt

my initial take would be that all these people scare me so much I don't want to get into it but also people keep messaging me to be like did you know people ship carlando" off the back of it and yes. I did know that.

my understanding of what's happened on booktok, which I absorb any information about only twice a year during whatever version of this is blowing up at the time, is pretty limited. partly because I'm not on tiktok and partly because I can't read. but the crux of it seems to have come down to people writing disgustingly thirsty comments on a hockey player and his wife's posts, regardless of what they were about, somehow feeling empowered to be horny not just on main but in someone's face because of booktok.

that's, clearly, not remotely acceptable. if there are communities of people out there that thirst about me I don't know about them (although the cold tendrils of horror about the Wikifeet page have just gripped me and no, oh god, that isn't the phrase I should've used at all get me out of here) but there are loads of people who fucking hate my guts. that's like, fine, it's their own business; if they keep it on discord or whatever and away from me it doesn't do me any harm. lord knows, I have committed the act of hating and indeed being horny, sometimes simultaneously, when I was at a safe enough distance for none of the subjects to ever know.

this is a thing about fandom. if you post "Max Verstappen looks breedable" on here then he's extraordinarily unlikely to ever see it or probably know what it means. if you comment that on Kelly's instagram posts, even if you don't like her and even if that's for valid reasons, that's very different.

as I gather it, the booktok thing has exploded into RPF in general. which, I gotta say, RPF and sexually harassing a dude and his family are in fact very different things. one has a rich history, both as actual ways of telling history (Anthony and Cleopatra: RPF, Chernobyl: RPF, the god damn Gran Turismo movie is RPF about an uncomfortably large number of people I know IRL and to be fair it looks like it slaps I'm gonna see it) and as a longstanding artform. RPF's history of horny is even extremely longstanding, with obscene RPF being used by both the French and Russian revolutionaries to undermine the concept of royal divinity.

RPF is political because it involves an interpretation of real events and people. and the perspective from which that's written will always be political. RPF can, certainly, be feminist; there's quite a lot of retellings of classical stories that fit this. RPF can, also, be fucking weird horny shit. or terrible man takes. or incredible, tender, queer retellings; Kaz Rowe's graphic novel about real-life surrealist Claude Cahun is an obvious example of the latter. Pride, the film about the miners' strikes and the AIDS crisis, is another.

so yeah, it is a legitimate and recognised form of literature and art and also uhhhh. well. I mean the omegaverse is definitely recognised, legally, in court because of that one case but I don't know that even its fiercest enthusiasts would really be all that keen on describing it. not as like, literature or anything just I think most people would rather literally never have an IRL conversation about that. ever.

I'm not 1000% clear on how carlando got into this but clearly that's broken containment a long time ago anyway. when you had Sky doing love heart interviews 15 races into them being teammates or whatever, there was an obvious amount of gay chicken being played by the producers that frankly, as a queer person in motorsport, I'm a lot more comfortable with the fan version of.

no, obviously, I do not think they are dating - or want to think that tbh - but frequently-queer fans projecting the wish fulfilment of seeing a kinder and more representative world for their desires, in places hidden from the subjects, is a lot less weird than leering, laughed-at dating questions and milk baths. in an ideal world it wouldn't have to be a secret, yearned-for alternative because things would be safe and open enough for there to be real queer stories everywhere but that, unfortunately, is not the one we currently live in.

wish fulfilment and telling stories are not the same things, necessarily. sometimes you tell the stories to remind yourself it's ok to have wishes or to work out what those even are. I don't think there's anything necessarily harmful about what names the characters have in those, provided the line between reality and any real people's privacy is kept.

clearly, with the booktok thing, that's where things went extremely wrong. generally tiktok as a whole seems to have a very odd perception about other people's agency, whether it's pranking videos or like the girl who filmed people peeing at Spa. if you regard everyday people as content opportunities (spoiler: the law does not think this and particularly in the EU you cannot film people without their consent) then I guess it's easy to slide over to seeing an athlete as a target for what I suspect very few of the people doing it recognised as very unpleasant and invasive harassment.

there's nothing wrong with fancying athletes. there's nothing even wrong with sexualising them, provided you respect some boundaries and provided it's not part of the conditions of their working contracts. there's a lot of difference between there being a discord where, idk, people say Mitch Evans is hot (he is, although somewhat implausibly he genuinely does not know this) and sponsors for female tennis players wanting them to wear revealing outfits and stay skinny or teenage girls being encouraged into provocative photoshoots by people who promise them roles, etc. teenage male athletes being pressured into doing things they don't want to yet or maybe at all to prove they're men, queer athletes being forced to hide who they are or repress it entirely.

would it be a little bit odd to find RPF of yourself? yes. I won't lie, I would judge the characterisation. I already do judge that on the frankly very weird things people write about me. you have never seen RPF as strange as the narratives people will make up about you in the comments of an article about hydrogen and frankly those scare me a lot more than whether someone thinks I'd be assigned beta or whatever.

stumbling across something, rather than having explicit sexual fantasies forced into your face, especially on what's your own social media pages where people you know in real life can see them, is very different though. some people who engage with RPF cross lines, whether that's weird conspiracy stuff about girlfriends being faked or stalking people's friends accounts etc.

RPF doesn't inherently cross lines, even when it's public; there's a very interesting interview here with Jann Mardenborough and the guy who plays him in the Gran Turismo movie about, among other things, portraying a fatal crash he was involved in. clearly, Jann is not only aware of but is the executive producer of what's ultimately fiction about himself and there's an ownership there, of course. but some parts of the movie are made up, for sure.

obviously I'm like, the not-very-secret infiltrator here because clearly I am On Tumblr and know what AO3 is. I follow a bunch of people who write fanfic because they also make nice gifs of my favourite blorbos and I like to think we can all make peace with our own boundaries about that kinda thing. also I read every single Shane/Ryan fic in like 5 weeks and honestly, not going to apologise except to myself for persisting with a few that didn't pay off.

but like: you do not have to make RPF or any fandom activity unethical. the way you conduct yourself does that and some people step way out of line.

[eclipsecrowned]

anyway. blog focusing. gonna try a technique a friend taught me to attempt to get my askbox under control. also goin to give a small preview of muses i have been asked to add -- though this does not mean they are all being added at once, some need a rewatch/reread before i unleash them on the blog.

616.

sebastienne (tbt) // 20s-30s // mutant // thi3ves guild associated due to family debts, has passive mutant abilities related to luck and probability, once getting out from under the guild's thumb she starts working towards establishing a community/support system in the south. quiet revolutionary, diligent woman, knows the city like the back of her hand and tries to be a good catholic between the demands of work and solidarity.

dnd.

m0llymauk tealeaf // 20s // tiefling // i promised them forever ago and am finally getting around to my s2 relisten to really bring them around, so thank all of you for your patience :3

fandomless.

cathal // ageless // cait sidhe // imagine an orange cat that is also fae. and all the stereotypes that implies. he's two stone, dumb as a box of rocks, but has so many heart cells that he's welcome wherever he roams. he's a good lad. dangerously cute, but subtly off-putting if you are a mortal viewing him from the lens of 'just a cat' because he is certainly not that and some of his movements/behaviors outline this.

fin*l f*ntasy gets its own section.

b*lthier // 22 // hume // the leading man is an audacious boyfailure and i love this for him. we need more on the level dashing rogues. he's the han s0lo of this rebellion and his chewie is a sexy bunny girl so what could possibly go wrong? going to rewatch a game movie to brush up on him.

br*ska // 30s // hume // i delete him. i readd him. i delete him. my bestie picks up j*cht and we start bullying our third musketeer to play aur0n. at this point he's going up and staying up til the day i die even if he never gets any airplay besides ax.

l*rsa s0lidor // baby // hume // do you love a good prince archetype? do you love lil dude morality pets to arc villains? do you believe in the redemptive power of a child leading the people into a golden age? well good luck getting to any of that because fate and his ambitious but loving elder brother are kicking this kid's ass six ways to sunday. still, he keeps his head up and aims to be better for the world than it has been to him, and is a surprisingly adroit negotiator. if i get even a whiff of people being abnormal about him i'm blocking liberally. also rewatching a game movie to brush up on him.

mikoto // 20s-30s // human // ten years ago, she was a legendary warrior guiding her summ0ner towards victory. braska and company beat her merry band there. in the ten years since, he's given up her role as a guardian, retired from public life, had a kid... and been drawn back in with the promise of an ambitious young man o reform the church she sees aging out of humanity every day. badass twin-sword wielder who is gonna lose her shit when she realizes her boss is the villain, actually --

valeriana maghreb // 20s // hume // a biracial woman raised in the deadly decadent court of the empire, daughter of a judge, and old friend of ax's muse in setting. loyal to the ruling family in totality, she has an affinity for one of the princes of the empire and plays wholeheartedly into his schemes. her own guile is reserved for helping others across the imperial march of conquest, and has been allowed to help mold another muse listed here per the schemes of his brother to shape an ideal leader. generally tender and sweet but capable of great acts of pettiness if pushed. she's so pretty and she suffers so much for what? girlish whimsy?

literature.

erik // 40s // poto // a little of the novel's absolute mystery, a dash of the musical's tragedy, altogether we stand for accountability in this house. multifaceted but unerringly the villain, even if his intentions can be read as sympathetic. i stand by the hilarity of book erik thinking wives are like little pets you feed and buy trinkets for and take for walkies in the park, the fact women find him brooding and suave and sexy is weirding him out.

quasim0do // teens // hond // i am throwing the novel the musical didney and the 39 movie in a blender and letting it create my ideal take on the character. wretched and tragic and hopeful and mad and pious. he's been through a lot. tentatively nixing his book and didney lore bc Holy Racial Stereotypes Batman, but may keep the book ambiguity about his mother potentially having been Roma. Def want a rewatch of a bootleg before I set anything for him in stone (ha ha.)

misc.

garrett // 20s // q4c // would you like to see some of the sickest blind rep in fantasy from an admittedly mid tier otherwise production? a stable boy who suffered head trauma in an evacuation that led to gradual vision loss and then outright blindness, he entertained dreams of knighthood in camelot regardless. however, the death of his biggest supporter soured him to the notion, and he retreated into an enchanted forest to carve out his own path instead. ten years later, he's getting dragged back into camelot's drama by an adventurous damsel with big hopes and dwindling experience about the world. please god someone help him he's so tired.

[anniekoh]

What It Takes to Heal: How Transforming Ourselves Can Change the World

by Prentis Hemphill (2024)

As we emerge from the past few years of collective upheaval, are we ready to face the complexities of our time with joy, authenticity, and connection? Now more than ever, we must learn to heal ourselves, connect with one another, and embody our values. In this revolutionary book, Prentis Hemphill shows us how. What It Takes to Heal asserts that the principles of embodiment—the recognition of our body’s sensations and habits, and the beliefs that inform them—are critical to lasting healing and change. Hemphill, an expert embodiment practitioner, therapist, and activist who has partnered with Brené Brown, Tarana Burke, and Esther Perel, among others, shows us that we don’t have to carry our emotional burdens alone. Hemphill demonstrates a future in which healing is done in community, weaving together stories from their own experience as a trauma survivor with clinical accounts and lessons learned from their time as a social movement architect. They ask, “What would it do to movements, to our society and culture, to have the principles of healing at the very center? And what does it do to have healing at the center of every structure and everything we create?” In this life-affirming framework for the way forward, Hemphill shows us how to heal our bodies, minds, and souls—to develop the interpersonal skills necessary to break down the doors of disconnection and take the necessary risks to reshape our world toward justice.

Joyful Militancy: Building Thriving Resistance in Toxic Times

by carla bergman and Nick Montgomery (2017)

Joyful Militancy investigates how fear, self-righteousness, and moralism infiltrate and take root within liberation movements, what to do about them, and ultimately how tenderness and vulnerability can thrive alongside fierce militant commitment. Why do radical movements and spaces sometimes feel laden with fear, anxiety, suspicion, self-righteousness, and competition? Montgomery and bergman call this phenomenon rigid radicalism: congealed and toxic ways of relating that have seeped into social movements, posing as the “correct” way of being radical. In conversation with organizers and intellectuals from a wide variety of political currents, the authors explore how rigid radicalism smuggles itself into radical spaces, and how it is being undone Interviewees include Silvia Federici, adrienne maree brown, Marina Sitrin, Gustavo Esteva, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Walidah Imarisha, Margaret Killjoy, Glen Coulthard, Richard Day, and more.

Reading these together!

[dailycharacteroption]

Guerrilla (Slayer Archetype)

(art by Darkdeliverians on DeviantArt)

It’s been a while since we had an archetype that was a repeat name on the blog, and this time we’re covering the slayer version of the Guerrilla, as I’ve already covered the rogue version (which I apparently could not spell).

In any case, as a brief reminder, guerrilla warfare is defined as combat that relies on stealth, sabotage, and harassment, striking foes then disappearing into the terrain in order to wear your foe down over time while they swing at shadows.

Many big, ponderous armies have been stopped dead in wilderness terrain due to these tactics, sometimes causing them to resort to drastic measures like destroying the terrain their foes hide in. This rarely works and often have biting repercussions for the soldiers of invaders.

No matter what they fight for, there is something heroic about a force facing down insurmountable numbers through tactics and cunning when and open fight would normally spell doom.

While these are all themes shared by the rogue namesake of this archetype, slayers do so in a slightly different way and benefit from being more openly close-quarters combatants.

These warriors are masters of the art of the ambush, able to remain unseen and strike first to deliver the first blow and potentially end fights before they can truly begin.

Always ready, when a fight begins and not everyone is completely sure what is going on, these slayers are often already moving, able to do a full charge attack during the moment of surprise.

Keeping foes off-balance is how these slayers win fights, and when they successfully ambush a foe and strike home, they get crucial seconds once combat begins to continue to strike at their weak points.

A simple archetype, but one that can be used both with melee and ranged combat, but is otherwise focused heavily on getting getting the most out of the surprise round and stealth. Don’t expect to track your prey across the country, but you won’t need that once you’ve set yourself up where you know a foe is going to be. Honestly, I recommend a mixed melee and ranged build with a heavy emphasis on stealth and keeping mobile.

While the rogue guerrilla is clearly focused more on the sabotage side of things, this slayer archetype is meant to be a more direct combatant, insofar as a guerrilla combatant can be “direct”, so you can absolutely use the two alongside each other with ease, perhaps as two different specialized members of the same squadron or group.

As if the rainforest wasn’t oppressive enough, the expedition army is having trouble with the locals, who ambush their scouts, sending the survivors running back to report the slaughter. As such, the party is sent to root out the settlements of these indigenous interlopers. However, they may discover that they’ve been in the wrong the whole time.

With the drow slave-armies having the advantage in numbers, the dwarves have had to fall back on unconventional combat to survive, disguising tunnels and turning caverns into ambush points to strike down the dark elf tenders of such slave legions.

The party finds themselves stalked by a powerful predator of the jungle, an angazhani, or “high girallon” and his retinue of various apefolk. In order to survive, they’ll have to turn the tables and follow the lead of their guide, a former revolutionary and ambusher.

[septembersghost]

I asked someone on the AwardsWatch forum who already watched Priscilla about Elvis’s portrayal and this is what they said:

“I wouldn't say he is portrayed as a monster, but he is portrayed as an asshole from time to time, and this does get worse as his career progresses. I think he definitely doesn't come out of this film great, but I also think he comes out as someone who was eaten up by his career and fame, influencing his behaviour. Mostly it is him verbally putting Priscilla down (I wouldn't even call it verbal abuse), then apologizing because of what he said. The chair-throwing scene is in there though. But a lot of this is papered over pretty quickly,.

There are definitely plenty of happy moments between Elvis and Priscilla, but the lasagna story is not one of them, as I recall.

The Germany scenes their conversations are mostly about his dead mom, his loneliness in Germany, and how he likes to talk to a person from back home (to which I say, aren't your fellow privates not from back home, but whatever).”

sorry to start with the end of this first, but, "aren't your fellow privates not from back home, but whatever" - this in and of itself proves to me that it's missing the point, because we know full well that he didn't feel safe or comfortable opening up and being vulnerable like that except with specific people (and it could be argued he never felt wholly safe after gladys died, but that's a discussion unto itself and gets into some analysis of psychological trauma).

"he comes out as someone who was eaten up by his career and fame" :( this did happen to and affect him to various degrees, but it didn't eliminate his humanity and tenderness.

and tbh "an asshole from time to time who then apologizes" is just human? like we've talked about, elvis did have a temper and he was the first to admit it and say he was imperfect, and then to try and amend it and do better. it's also unavoidable that the pills negatively affected his ability to self-regulate. the reason every single (trustworthy, as far as we can determine that) person who was close to and dearly loved him goes out of their way to discuss his kindness and graciousness and what a beautiful person he was as a whole is because the persistent portrayal of him as an overbearing, unpredictable force is like...the most shallow and common way he's been depicted. so it's frustrating that we're right back to that point again and critics are treating it like it's somehow revolutionary. people are foaming at the mouth over this to attack him as if it's brand new information, when it's just kind of the most boring take.