#all lives lost are tragedies

[edenfenixblogs]

Memes about the detonations are not appropriate you guys. This is a war. It’s not appropriate when people treat it like a fandom when Jews and Israelis are the ones getting hurt. It’s not appropriate to treat it like a fandom when it’s the other side getting hurt.

[nancywheeeler]

hopeless time loop. the way out isn’t to save everyone. the way out isn’t to save even one person. the way out isn’t to change anything. the way out is accepting how it happened the first time is how it always will be. that’s how you acted, that’s how they acted, that’s how you would have acted every time if you weren’t given the curse of hindsight. the way out is accepting you can’t fix the past; you can only forgive yourself for it.

[frunbuns]

There's something so bittersweet about the childhood flashbacks in tua. They were all children together. Reginald was horrible, but they had each other. And then everything went to shit. Five's 13 year old body a bitter reminder of what once was. His siblings in their adult bodies a reminder of how things should've been. God,,,,

[crazysnakey]

Something something about the Third Doctor and the fate of Tantalus. You're trapped in one place. Everything you want, that you once took for granted is right there in front of you, you can see it you can reach for it but you can never have it. You will never attain it on your own. Your fate is dependent on the mercy or cruelty of others and you hate it and you rage against it but you can’t do anything, your defiance is treated like nothing but a childish tantrum but you refuse to beg, you won’t get that desperate no matter how long you’re trapped here, no matter how low you’re brought down. You stand among humans and you look human but you’re not, you’re an animal in a cage with them and you’re the only one who can see the bars. Gnawing and hacking at them to no avail. And yet all you can do is wait and hope and try and fail in an endless loop until an outside force interferes to free you from your prison. The carrot and the stick. How does it feel to be on the receiving end?

[warpedpuppeteer]

Do you ever cry when you think about how Eddie was probably a gentle soul when he was younger? Shy and quiet, loves to listen to people talk with sparkles in his eyes and a sweet shy smile that made his dimple pop, loved helping his abuela and mom and sisters at home. Then everything was destroyed when toxic masculinity was forced onto him and Eddie has never since been allowed the chance to ever be as soft or as gentle as he was before? How this poor little baby was sent off to war, breaking him in ways he couldn't even imagine. How since then all he's done is be afraid and confused and angry and frustrated.

Because nothing feels right even when he did all the things he was told he should do.

Be a man when I'm not around son. Be a man and marry her. Be a man and provide for your family. Be a man and kill for your country. Be a man and forget about your PTSD. Be a man and take care of your child. Be a man, be a man, be a man.

And he did! He did all of it like everyone told him to! But then why isn't he better? Why is he still broken??

But he's not. He's healing. All the cracks in his soul are being filled with gold. Like kintsugi. He's learning how to be whole again. He's found the 118, a family not of blood who loves him the way he deserves. He's found Buck, who accepts him as he is; all his flaws and imperfections; everything that makes him Eddie.

It's a slow process and sometimes it's painful but he'll get there. Eddie Diaz is not broken. He's a piece of art, beautiful and loved, his scars lined in gold.

He will learn to be gentle again; to himself most of all. He will learn to be soft; to ask for things. He will learn to be honest; to express his needs. He will learn to be Eddie once more, slowly.

[starculler]

strap in for this week's fic flavor: the failsafe episode of season one of the young justice cartoon except the simulation just won't. fuckin. end.

(fics that inspired this at the end)

If I ever did sit down to make my own fic, I'd split it in 3 parts:

The Simulation: bits and pieces of the 40 years Dick lives after most everyone he knows has died

The Return: the immediate aftermath and healing from the trauma of having not-quite-actually lived a whole life only to wake up and find out it was all fake. nothing traumatizing about that whatsoever.

The Unintended Consequence: aka the twist I'd love to add and would hint to in the second part - finding out the simulation, through martian mind fuckery, pulled from the real world (and in many cases, from real minds). Dick meets a bunch of people he didn't think were real outside the confines of his simulated life. A bunch of rowdy, heroism-inclined teens across the years get to meet the sibling/friend/mentor figure they all dreamed up one night.

(actual idea snippets under the cut)

.

Dick Grayson is 14 and most of the world's heroes have died. He planned a suicide mission that left him the sole survivor of a doomed team he helped found. The invasion may have been stopped, but is this really the price he wanted to pay?

The first face he sees in the infirmary is Roy's, and he has to close his eyes and just breathe for a few minutes because for one painful moment he'd thought it was Wally. But this isn't the world where his best friend miraculously survived alongside him. This is the one where he got his best friend killed and didn't even give him the courtesy of following behind him. Behind them.

.

Dick Grayson is 27 and has lived longer without Bruce than with him. The invasion's anniversary is always a tough day for him, but that morning seems especially harrowing. He'll get shit for it later, but can't resist stepping out onto the balcony of the manor's master bedroom (Bruce's old bedroom) for a smoke -- his first since he'd promised to quit if Jason, just 15 then, did too.

"Bad habits tend to pile up," he'd said, a rueful quirk to his tired grin. He'd tapped the cigarette twice on the railing and added, lower, "and this one's especially nasty, huh."

He inhales, watches the sun creep across the horizon, and lets acrid smoke burn through his lungs for a long moment before blowing it out in a small cloud. His eyes water, but he doesn't cough. It tastes just as bad as it did the first time he smoked one, not even a year after the invasion and treading water as Robin proved insufficient.

There hadn't been enough heroes to go around then, and Dick had been trained by one of the best. It hadn't been fair, but it had been his plan that had ultimately stopped the invasion. His shoulders everyone's expectations fell on.

He takes another drag, then smudges the lit end against the rail he's leaned on when he hears a boot scuff purposefully against the roofing above him.

"Todd and Pennyworth will be upset with you."

He doesn't turn around. Damian doesn't jump down to join him.

.

Dick Grayson is 54 and wakes up in a room full of ghosts. He hears his long-dead father-figure tell his long-dead team about a simulation they weren't meant to win. A training exercise gone wrong and only half a day spent under their mentors' careful, if slightly panicked, supervision.

He looks at his hands, watching the way his gloves crease when he flexes them in and out of tight fists. He looks at his team, their eyes a little haunted but shoulders slumped with relief even as they grumble. Batman's heavy, gloved hand settles on his shoulder and the weight of it is a nauseating mix of foreign-familiar.

He opens his mouth. Closes it.

Tears prick his eyes behind his domino mask, and he tells himself the suffocating, acidic void building in his chest is just some leftover side effect of the ordeal and not the grief-guilt of outliving yet another family (no matter that they hadn't been real in the end).

.

Dick Grayson is 16-going-on-56 and well used to the coincidences piling up between his simulated life and the real thing. Some of it -- missions and villains he remembers cropping up -- he's marked for Bruce to review and sort as he pleases. Some -- security for the cave, team building anecdotes, and training regimens -- he's shared with the team. And some he keeps only for himself.

Tim is one of those. He knows it's not fair to the kid (so much smaller now than he ever was when Dick lived his simulated life), but he can't help being selfish just for this. Tim is the one kid he's sure he didn't make up, and if Dick's taken to babysitting the kid just to be near at least one member of the family he built for himself in the wake of the worst days of his life .... Well, anyone who says shit about it can happily stand in line to have their teeth kicked in.

Despite this, it still catches him off-guard when he sees a familiar face pop up in one of Bruce's reports.

Jason Todd, caught boosting tires off the batmobile, is nearly the same age now as he was when Dick met him. He stares at the words, but none of them really sink in beyond the kid's name and address. He's moving before he's even made the decision.

He's used to the world kicking him when he's down - lived it for 40 frustrating years. But he has Bruce again. And things with Tim have been so good. And he's always been selfish when it comes to family. If he could just see Jason. If he could just meet him. If he could talk to him.

If if if if if--

.

Inspirations:

Circles in Shattered Mirrors by InfinityIllusion

Fine (But Not Okay) by CharlotteDaBookworm

Verisimilitude by mutemelody

[thedreadvampy]

legitimately insane how to some people, "we should wipe out this ethnic group that we've violently constrained to a ghetto because they're just genetically more violent and dangerous" is a reasonable and justifiable statement but it's Nazi Rhetoric to say something like, "it's bad that Israeli civilians are being killed but acknowledging that as tragic includes acknowledging that the almost daily state-sanctioned murder of civilians by the Israeli government is also tragic and unacceptable"

btw guys speaking of Nazi shit - can we check in, alongside what's been done to Palestinians in the last 75 years, what's the Israeli government's take on the Azerbaijani government's newest round of ethnic cleansing of Armenians? oh are the Israeli government's actions maybe not determined by Jewish identity, but by a commitment to colonial supremacy which puts them on the same page as other violently genocidal states like Azerbaijan, the US, and the UK? god can you Even Imagine?

(framing speaking against Israeli war crimes as inherently antisemitic requires understanding the Israeli state as representing all Jewish people, when it doesn't even represent all Israelis.

framing Israeli war crimes as synonymous with Jewish identity is pretty fucked up if we're being honest. I don't think that controlling water and power and movement for a captive population and shooting children dead for throwing stones is an inherent value of Judaism, any more than I think the torture carried out at Guantanamo Bay is an inherent value of Christianity - in both cases they're atrocities carried out by a far right genocidal government using religious identity as a shield.

Calling statements like "Israel is committing genocide against the people it's displaced" inherently antisemitic is doing more to further the idea that all Jewish people are associated with Israel than saying "the Israeli government is doing war crimes," which is a statement of fact about a country that exists and does war crimes. Is criticism of Israel as a nation often used as cover for antisemitism? Absolutely. Does that mean the Israeli government isn't doing literal war crimes repeatedly, on record, while talking publicly about scrubbing an ethnic group off the map? Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh well in the last 48 hours they've definitely cut off water and power to almost 600,000 civilians and allegedly used white phosphorus against civilians so in an extremely factual and unambiguous way yeah man those are Literal War Crimes whoever does them.)

[greeneyeofenvy]

posting an old draft

these are my Executive Producers, aka the Narrators

and @as-thra, I thibk (I’m so sorry if I’m wrong) that u mentioned being interested in the Creatrix lore)

[mc-critical]

Gosh, this Daye/Nigar scene is just so great. Daye knows about Nigar having kissed Ibrahim for quite some time now, but she doesn't berate her for it. She waits until after the wedding to talk to her and comfort her, attempting to convince her in this strict yet nurturing manner that she'll be better off with Matrakci; that she'll be better off married and with the new family she'd create (even if that means being with someone she doesn't love). She'd be better off taking care of someone, being surrounded by people she's fond of (like the future children in her arms) or might grow fond of sooner or later (like Matrakci) in her own home instead of withering alone in the ruthless cold harem that she and Daye might be too used to but it still isn't fully theirs, it can't be. Daye may have Valide but she's still alone. Nigar may be sought by many but she's still alone. Nigar and Daye's entire fates hinge on these people and it's uncertain what other cruel order, what other unbearable appointment in which palace will they issue next. Marriage seems like the one way for Nigar to get out of this unending circle to Daye as she at least can still do that. And the love and sadness and pain possibly residing in her heart? They may hurt but even they can be forgotten "with time" (oh look at that, yet another character having the "moving on with time" coping mechanism!), they have to be for her own good. This is what has apparently helped Daye to cope with any pain, so it should help Nigar as well. This is how Daye has forgotten, moved forward and latched onto what's left to her with knowing resignation, so Nigar should do so as well. And here is Nigar who still tries her all to keep it together in these last few days, weeks, months, but barely manages it. She can't let anyone else find out about the full extent of what concerns her, as she may really be done for then; she's burdened with that secret forever, with her feelings that won't have a response, as this is what Ibrahim had repeatedly demonstrated to her up until then (little did she know, though...). She can't even end it all, having to keep on in an uncertain, forced upon her marriage which seems like the only thing that can make her forget, but it isn't, she never thought it was. It just adds more salt to her wound, it only brings her more pain. Yet the one person she breaks in front of is Daye. In this moment, she's the one who she trusts the most and the one who provides at least a little understanding, at least a little guidance despite of it all. So she leans on Daye while she reveals her own turmoil, unaware that Daye also knows more about Nigar's turmoil than Nigar realizes and that might be also why she's saying all of those things. They both empathize with each other's turmoils. They both are moved, letting themselves go to an embrace. It lasts only for a short while but that's precisely where its power lies: there can be one short moment before they have to assume their roles again, before everything is to proceed as planned.

[completeoveranalysis]

[4]

HUGE FAN of tiny Sakura trying to make that connection between her and Lava Lamp. Shyly asking if they can hold hands after the ceremony is done, which is ADORABLE and, because this is Tsubasa, means that this absolutely will not happen. Their outstretched hands will ONCE AGAIN fail to meet in the middle, just like always - but different this time, since this is the FIRST. 

And extra hello to Lava Lamp’s giant distorted shadow looming underneath him! The disproportionately huge shadow his presence is casting! The dark fate spreading out before him just by being here! The alternate versions of himself that will spread into the future!

I love that this Sakura, in her love for water and the water’s love for her, is characterised by bubbles floating around her instead of feathers. And that Lava Lamp hopes that they can be together. And that this tiny child’s hope MAY OR MAY NOT be the match that sets so many other things in motion.

It's just two children wanting to be friends! And SO MUCH goes wrong!

[inkandpaintleopard]

Save my children 🚨🍉🇵🇸

Hello,

In a world torn by conflict and devastation, there are those who have lost everything. Imagine a father who once provided safety and security for his children, now standing amidst the ruins of his life. His home, his memories, and his children's future—everything has been reduced to ashes.

This father now faces the unbearable reality of watching his children suffer, with no means to provide them with even the most basic needs. The anguish in his eyes tells a story of despair, of a man who has been stripped of his dignity, and left with nothing but the will to protect his family.

We are reaching out to you, to your compassion and humanity. Your contribution, no matter how small, can bring hope back into this father's life. It can put food on the table, provide shelter, and give his children the chance to dream again.

Please donate today. Show the world that in the face of such overwhelming loss, we can stand together and make a difference. Your kindness can rebuild a life, restore hope, and remind us all of the power of generosity.

Thank you all 🙏🙏

While I can’t donate, I can try to spread the word

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[seirosu]

What Kind of Tragedy Are You? self-inflicted

you were given the choice to live , a thousand times over, and yet you never choose it . not intentionally , oh no, you didn’t know it was a grave you were digging . but with every turn , you were twisting the knife deeper . every decision doomed you more . had it been anyone else , they would have made it . but you ?? you are so perfectly you , there was no escaping it . the true tragedy of it all, is how preventable it was.

tagged by : @mischiefmodig (tyty!!)

[rueclfer]

what made you stan the lov?

ask me again when its 2am and post bong rip

[eriexplosion]

Since today is apparently the day for ending thoughts on TBB - I don't think that the series is going to end with the batch split up, if only because they've never really been together. Crosshair of course has always been off on his own hell journey, Echo left to work with Rex, Tech "died", Omega kidnapped. They started the series with a fracture and they've just become more and more fractured over time.

But, they've also been following Hunter's desire to stay out of shit that whole time. To settle down and find a good life for Omega. Let her be a child and not a fighter. And if the season 2 finale says anything, it says that just stepping out isn't an option. The Empire is never going to just leave their family alone.

We know Echo doesn't want to stop, not when there are other clones out there to help. And I think that after everything Crosshair isn't going to want to stop either. He's less motivated by sheer altruism than Echo, but he has branched out from only caring about the batch and absolutely no one else and he has every reason to despise the Empire after this.

Omega? We know baby girl loves to help people and her time in Mt Tantiss will have given her a close up look at every reason that the fight for the clones isn't over. And she's become more and more independent as the show goes on. Hunter will want her to stay on Pabu and unlike in the season 2 finale she won't be in the depths of despair. She's going to want to help and I don't think anything is going to stop her.

Tech has been the other voice of Going After Crosshair in season 2, and once they get him back and he wants to go with Echo? And Omega does too? Tech is going to lend his assistance, on or off the field depending on how we get him back.

Which leaves Wrecker and Hunter. Hunter trying to convince them to please just settle down say its enough, he can't lose people that he just got back. But he's being outvoted one by one. And when Wrecker decides that they have a point, because of course he's missed Omega, Tech, AND Crosshair and he's going where they're going... well, Hunter is going to have to admit that their job isn't done.

One of the themes has been being more than soldiers - and that leads to a thought that they'll finally get to retire and I think they do make Pabu their home base and it's a more restful life than they've had. But I don't think it'll be to retire completely. They're not just soldiers, they're a family. But there are many more brothers out there that need to be brought home before they're done.

[willow-p012]