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sixty-silver-wishes · 7 months ago

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With regards to current events and I/P, I’ve shared my thoughts on it and make my stance VERY clear. I’m still learning a lot, but by this point, I’ve come to notice some serious red flags in terms of how people talk about it, particularly from left-leaning positions.

Yes, collective punishment is a war crime. What the Israeli government is doing is atrocious. Let’s make that absolutely clear. But I’ve also cut ties with people who praise the October 7 attacks and romanticize them. As I’ve said before, I can’t in good conscience agree with those who praise the attacks because civilian lives don’t stop mattering. I find it disturbing when people say that I/P “isn’t complicated,” because understanding it means understanding a long history of intersectional issues. Nothing in history is ever “not complicated.” That doesn’t mean it’s a topic to be avoided, but it is one that requires nuance to understand.

Among the most disgusting things I can remember people saying here after the attacks was those who said “stop telling people to check in on their Jewish or Israeli friends’ mental health, because it’s so much worse for Palestine.” Which. Gross. The mental health of Jews and Israelis doesn’t stop mattering because of the crisis in Palestine; why can’t I be worried for the mental health of everyone who may be suffering? And if I have friends anywhere who may be impacted by current events, I always check in on them, because that’s what friends do.

Overall, I believe the biggest issue with discourse surrounding I/P is the expectation that people “pick sides.” And when people “pick sides,” they’re not paying attention to nuance, colonialism, discrimination, etc. It’s either casting the entire respective Israeli and Palestinian populations as “good” or “bad,” and that generalization of assigning black-and-white morality to entire populations of people spills into Islamophobia and anti-Semitism, with no regard for the history of both Jewish and Palestinian displacement- and no regard for present-day civilian lives. There’s this disgusting mentality I see from non-Jews and non-Muslims about how every Jewish person must be responsible for the actions of the Israeli government and military, and how every Muslim person must be responsible for the actions of Hamas. And as someone who is not Jewish or Muslim, I want to make it clear that I am not entitled to the opinions of any Jewish or Muslim person on I/P. Hell, as a Christian (and a white one living in the US), if anything, it’s my responsibility to be aware of what’s been done to harm both communities in the name of my own religion.

I remember seeing an NPR article at the end of last year interviewing different Jewish Americans from different generations on their views on Israel, and because a variety of people were interviewed, they all gave different opinions. But one that stuck out to me was one older lady who said that she viewed Israel as a “safety net,” and the above post explains where this lady was coming from in great detail. And while I cannot get behind the idea of oppressing one group of people in order to create a safe haven for another (regardless of the group of people), we also can’t deny how horrible the world has been to the Jewish population throughout history, to the point where many feel the need for a “safety net” in the first place.

So, I guess what I’m trying to say is, we need to be smart about this sort of thing. It’s why I refuse to use slogans that have to do with I/P; one slogan can mean many different things to many different people. For instance, “from the river to the sea” is used both by people advocating for peaceful coexistence, and by those who advocate for genocide against the Israeli population. The other reason is I want to avoid groupthink. I want to make sure that all opinions I have on I/P are formed from research and listening to a variety of viewpoints, rather than condensing them into charged statements that can be vague and omit important information.

It’s an issue I want to be VERY careful about, and one I’m still trying to learn about, because it’s easy enough to say “Islamophobia is wrong” and “anti-Semitism is wrong.” Nobody wants to be a bigot (or at least, nobody should want to be one). But I also want to make sure I know exactly what each of those concepts are, where they come from, and how they manifest, or else I can’t help dismantle them.

So a while back, a fairly left-wing friend of mine was shocked at the thought of Left-Wing Holocaust Denial, asking how it could even be possible, how can the Left even deny the Holocaust given everything (quote: "why would the LEFT be in denial? After you read Elie Wiesel, you can't deny any of it. Same with Maus, Frieda Appleman-Jurman's memoirs, and all that. Also, Lois Lowry won a Newberry medal for Number the Stars"). So I've been chewing on this for a while now.

First, Right-Wing Holocaust Denial is straight up "denial that the Holocaust happened"--often with an undertone of "But we wish that it had and it was a great idea". They deny the number of deaths, or excuse the Nazis, or say that the Jews had it coming, or say that it didn't happen at all, that sort of thing. It's a very blunt, straightforward form of denial.

Comparatively, Left-Wing Holocaust Denial takes a different, more sophisticated form that functions on multiple levels--with an undertone of its own along the lines of "the Jews are exaggerating to try to portray themselves as victims"--and to talk about this form of denial, I have to explain what the Holocaust was.

So this gets a bit long, because what is being denied is long, but I will ask you to bear with me.

But, TL:DR:

Right Wing Holocaust Denial denies the body count and the atrocities...

Left Wing Holocaust Denial denies everything that built up to it, the centuries of Othering and murders, and the aftereffects.

The Holocaust, 1939-1945, was the culmination of literally centuries of anti-Jewish hatred from Christian Europeans, dating back well over a thousand years.

For one example, there were anti-Jewish riots in France in the 1020s in misplaced vengeance for the Islamic destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in 1009 CE. Decades later, the Crusaders butchered 99% of the Jewish population of northern Europe, beginning in 1096 and continuing for centuries, such that a population of nearly 100,000 in 1050 CE was reduced down to less than a thousand in 1350 CE, as genetic studies show.

Jews were vilified as "Enemies of Christ", and various forms of attack to whip up mobs against Jews became common enough to get names of their own: Blood Libel (the accusation of Jews stealing children and murdering them to use their blood) and Host Desecration (the accusation that Jews were stealing consecrated Hosts and "torturing" them in order to attack Jesus), among others. These resulted in thousands of Jews being attacked, harmed, killed, and expelled.

Pogroms, massacres, and expulsions were just part of the pattern; Jews were effectively second class citizens at best, confined to marginal parts of cities (the original ghettos), subject to ritual humiliation (there was a part of Carnival in Rome that featured "The Running Of The Jews" where the Jewish population of the city had to race and be beaten by the Christians and there are designed-to-be-humiliating carvings of Jews on churches), and so forth. Jews were the scapegoats of choice--a powerless minority made to do the dirty work (such as tax collection) by the powerful and then liquidated when the lower classes got upset, as a distraction (King: "It's not my fault you're hungry!" *motions to table laden with food* "It's the fault of those greedy Jews who I force to work as tax collectors! Go kill them instead of me!"). And that cycle further entrenched the hatred.

Martin Luther took this to new heights during the Reformation; initially, he was "nice", saying that the Christians should treat the Jews gently to get us to convert... and when we didn't, he got nasty, writing a book titled "On The Jews And Their Lies" where he outlined a "how to persecute Jews and make their lives utter hell so they'll convert" prescription of behavior.

And this all became deeply baked into the culture of Europe, in plays, architecture, pop culture, stories, and conspiracy theories over the centuries. Even after the ghetto walls were torn down in the early 1800s by Napoleon and Jews were allowed to integrate into mainstream society, that hatred did not go away. If anything, the resentment grew, culminating in outbursts like the Dreyfus Affair, where a French-Jewish artillery officer was made into the fall guy for another spy, because he was Jewish.

There was a "Jewish Question" in the countries of Europe. A political National Question that went, "What shall we do with these Jews who live in our lands who we do not want?" And many of the Jews desperately wanted to prove that they were Good Model Citizens, but it didn't matter. Some of us, seeing the writing on the wall, and that the Europeans would never accept us, started agitating for political separation and independence--Zionism.

During this time, the old religious-based hatreds were being ostensibly phased out, and it was the era of "scientific racism", so a new word was coined--"antisemitism", to replace the old "Judenhass", to sound more "scientific". More anti-Jewish accusations were created, such as the "Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion", which is a Russian-made forgery that is supposedly the record of a meeting of Jewish elders in their master plan to control the world; it was written to distract hatred away from the Czar and onto a scapegoat. (Essentially just an updated version of the kings' tactic of scapegoating the Jews from centuries earlier)

So the hatreds stayed, regardless of what new clothes they wore. After World War One, when the Nazis said that the blame for the loss and subsequent humiliation and economic collapse of the Weimar Republic was because of the "Jews stabbing us in the back", there was a massive population of people who were already primed to hate and resent Jews and just needed that excuse to focus that hatred. They passed laws that specifically stripped citizenship from the Jews on racial grounds, instituted blood purity laws--again, on racial grounds--and built up to the Holocaust, where the Jews were not seen as human, but as vermin, out to contaminate their pure race.

In the process, they killed nine out of ten Jews who lived in Europe. Their hatred to the point that they diverted efforts to fight the Allies just so that they could kill Jews. Local people hated Jews so much that they collaborated with their own conquerors, just so they could kill Jews. Because they hated us so much, had hated us for centuries. Their "Final Solution" to "The Jewish Question." This part is what the Right Wing denies.

And then, in the aftermath, nobody wanted the remaining victims. Literally, the British said, "We'll carve off part of our Empire to give to them rather than let them come here."

So, after centuries of hatred and marginalization, Europeans gave into their hatreds that they had been raised with and murdered us in our millions, and we were traumatized.

And some of us went to the USA--the few that the US was willing to take in--and many more, not having any other place to go, went to British Mandate Palestine with the hope of self-governance in the future Jewish territory... having learned that they could not trust non-Jews.

That is the Holocaust and what led up to it, and some of the aftermath of it.

Left Wing Holocaust Denial erases all of that, except for the Holocaust itself, which is taken out of context as a moral lesson.

The Left Wing Unofficial Narrative Of The Holocaust is that the Nazis arbitrarily picked several groups of fellow European Whites, the Jews being just one of them, agitated against them in order to make an Enemy, and then killed them in order to cement power. Thus, in this narrative, the Holocaust was thus an aberration brought about by demagoguery and propaganda. Thus, it is imperative to remember "Never Again", because it can happen to anyone.

According to this narrative, "Jews" are just White Europeans who practice a different Abrahamic Religion, and who played the aftermath of the genocide for undeserved sympathy points to get a colony of their own where they could become oppressors in turn, and that they are getting special treatment that ignores the other victims of the Holocaust.

In doing so, the Left needs to ignore...

...the racial aspects of the Holocaust and the decades and centuries before it--the blood purity laws, the specific "racial science" that Othered Jews, and so forth--in favor of a "Jews are White" narrative.

...that the Jews were specifically targeted by the Nazis for extermination, to the point of irrational, self-defeating fixation, whereas only the Roma were as targeted for complete eradication alongside the Jews--in favor of a "But what about the other victims too?" narrative.

...the Nazi obsession with hating Jews (which has not gone away) as a fundamental part of their ideology, and pretending that the Nazi hatred of Jews is no different than the eugenics and political oppression that other groups were victims of--again, in favor of a "Other people were victims of the Nazis too!" narrative.

...the centuries of hatred and victimization that preceded the Holocaust and culminated in it--in favor of a "Jews are just European White People" narrative.

...the trauma that happened when you've lost your homes, your families, your way of life, and your society, and nobody made any efforts to help you, and how it becomes apparent, after trying to fit in and integrate for decades, that you can be Perfect Citizens and the Christians will still hate you so we need to defend ourselves for our own sakes--in favor of a "Jews are oppressors and didn't learn the right lessons from the Holocaust" narrative.

So, TL;DR:

Right Wing Holocaust Denial denies the body count and the atrocities...

Left Wing Holocaust Denial denies everything that built up to it, the centuries of Othering and murders, and the aftereffects.

#good to know #antisemitism cw #palestine #israel

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shawnjacksonsbs · 1 year ago

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Coexist

Yes, please!!!!! 10-21-23

"Race and religion do not separate people; ignorance does." — Matshona Dhliwayo

"Diversity doesn't look like anyone. It looks like everyone." — Karen Draper

Once again, it's not an attack on you. . .

We can't just commandeer a comfortable coexistence.

Sometimes, I wish we could.

A lot of different things have been coming up in my life lately about different religious . . .things, from friends, social media, the news, etc.

Maybe it's the time of year, and it's the bringing about signs of change and ushering in the holidays, which, for me, means inclusiveness, not the opposite.

Contrary to popular opinion, I do have faith. It's in us though, in humanity itself. My belief is that inside the hearts of every single human being is the ability to do good and feel love for others.

Call it a learned behavior or skill, if you must, but just like with any other skill, the more you hone it, the sharper it gets.

Do you really need more explanation?

I don't really care who you believe in, or who you give the credit to, so long as you're trying to do good, to be good, and to one another.

Different truths and different perspectives allow for us to arrive to this destination, differently, but we all have the ability.

Not seeing, or living up to, your potential is an ideological statement meant for parents, guardians, and teachers to say to rebellious adolescents at best.

Fear holds the only restrictions placed on actual love, period.

A friend shared this video with me, and asked my thoughts.

Now, I'm sharing it with all of you, along with my thoughts, and will respect any thoughts shared in the comments. Dialogue is the first nontoxic step, right?

Essentially, and I'm kind of paraphrasing here, I told them that,

{ In our history, the coming together and networking of groups that formed in clans, and/or families happened out of necessity for "My need of you" and it was reciprocated.

From this style of relationship, empathy was born.

When we stopped being "roamers" and "nomads" selflessness led to our moral laws as we know them.

There was no one moral law giver.

And, I might add that they constantly change due to cultural and societal ideals and institutions.

Good and bad both (?) do have to exist for us to appreciate one over the other. This is probably a philosophical truth, however without the ability to live with one and not the other, we'll truly never know.

The religious who claim love and peace (and not just christians) have caused and continue to cause more of the human on human evil deeds and killings done than any other group of persons, in the history of . . .ever.

. .

I'll go one further, and if certain groups of people today don't trust and believe the science and history with education basis for this, then let's say we go all the way back to the first human(s) that believed a god instructed then on moral law and they started the institution of following the good vs bad directive, that's still humans, and their belief that started it.

For someone to think good has to be god, or that it started from god floors me.

I wonder how many people would just start acting way worse if all of a sudden they found out there was no god.

. . .

It's worrisome that some people really are only as good as they are, which is probably still short, because they think another being (higher power/supernatural) is demanding it and is going to punish them if they don't. }

Lastly, why can't we enjoy the fact that from our history a type of morality has shown us the way to love and be kind, through strides of great empathy towards our fellow man, no matter where it came from. The important thing is, we have it now.

"'Please respect me, as I respect you.'"

And define respect however you need to, as long as at least partially aligns with the following:

A feeling of deep admiration for someone or something

and/or

Due regard for the feelings, wishes, rights, or traditions of others.

It all starts with the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.

This week, as you move forward, remember that sharing our love and our laughter only goes as far in this world as our ability to share in the love and laughter of others.

Hate and contempt will always block that, if given an opportunity to do so.

Once again, it's not an attack on you. It's an imploration for an understanding of why it's so hard for so many.

We can't just commandeer a comfortable coexistence, as awesome as that sounds.

Now, remember to be kind and share your love and your laughter with the world around you.

Until next week;

"Real diversity and inclusion doesn't mean that we will always agree. It means that even when we disagree, we can still respect each other." — Justin Jones-Fosu

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melonisopod · 3 years ago

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Having some thoughts about Grainne

I’m too lazy to make a big organized essay on the subject but regarding Grainne I just want to say: Yes, her relationship with Diarmuid was unhealthy and even toxic and at times, abusive. But I also think she gets unfairly vilified given her situation. I think she gets hit with most of the blame when Fionn 1) had arranged for him to marry his grandson but she finds out at the last minute she has to marry him, 2) went chasing after Diarmuid and Grainne for years so they couldn’t even settle down and were on the run the whole time and 3) leaves Diarmuid to die after claiming to have forgiven him and does not show a hint of remorse after the fact.

Y’all are letting off Fionn way too easy and making Grainne out to be some blood-sucking harpy whom Diarmuid never loved. Have you considered this story, which was written in the early Middle Ages in a Christianized Ireland at a time when courtly love and female romantic agency were considered taboo, might be purposely portraying a woman who shows romantic agency in the worst possible way? That maybe, at least some of Grainne’s actions are colored by very sexist attitudes of women who want to marry someone they’re actually attracted to?

I’m by no means claiming Grainne was a saint. But then, no one truly was in The Pursuit. It’s an ugly, messy story, where there are no winners and everyone to different degrees had a hand in it (if Fionn hadn’t decided to marry Grainne and also be sneaky about it, if Grainne hadn’t put a geas on Diarmuid and run away with him, if Diarmuid had just communicated with Fionn about the geas and not been a dramatic binch throughout his time as a runaway, if Fionn hadn’t been a bitter binch and pretended to forgive Diarmuid only to stab him in the back later and leave him to die).

Also Diarmuid makes every indication he loved Grainne. I know it’s very easy to think otherwise because we see very little of how he actually was with her but we do see how he was with Sola-Ui, and he wanted to get away from her as quickly as he could. But the few bits of him and Grainne together we do see he seems to have some genuine affection there for her.

In FGO, he even says he truly loved her, and he’s never said anything negative about her in Fate canon. He does clearly hold a lot of remorse and regrets of his life, and it would be very easy for him to just pin the blame on Grainne, to claim he only pitied her and was roped into running away because of the geas but he doesn’t. (Some have claimed he’s a perpetual victim who blames everyone else for his problems but if that were true, he could so easily put all the blame on Grainne but he literally is never shown doing that).

To be clear: I’m not pretending this relationship was at all healthy. But also this is a story where Diarmuid runs off with the king’s wife and has kids with her while they’re on the run and she’s under a (granted, very weak) charm spell and he’s under a geas so dubious consent on both ends. Idk find a Heroic Spirit whose legends didn’t involve something problematic, I’ll wait.

tl;dr “Diarmuid genuinely loved Grainne” and “Their relationship was toxic” are two statements that can and should coexist and also “Grainne did a lot of things wrong” and “Grainne was a victim of an insanely sexist society and pulled a girlboss move running away with Diarmuid” can and should also coexist.

#fate #fate/zero #diarmuid ua duibhne #grainne #the pursuit of diarmuid and grainne #celtic mythology #irish mythology

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fiveisnumber1 · 3 years ago

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The Vortex That Takes Me To You - "Me, Lu, and Five Times Two" Side Story

Main story parts:

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32

_________________________

"Wait!" Five called out as he tried to hand you the briefcase

It was too late though as Luther pushed him into the vortex to 2019. As Five held the now-defunct half of the briefcase he fell through time for what felt like a matter of seconds before hitting the ground of the courtyard behind the academy. With a giant flash, the spot in the sky where the blue used to be was now gone. From afar the five known living Hargreeves siblings slowly approached the person who dropped from the sky. Slowly, Five got up from the ground throwing the broken briefcase away as he dusted the dirt and leaves off his clothing. Approaching closer the group looks on in confusion as Klaus asks,

"Does anyone else see a slightly older version of little number Five or is that just me?"

Five took a look down at himself. His suit was too loose now and when he looked at his hands he saw no more wrinkles or signs of old age. There was a leftover puddle nearby from rain that must've occurred early and as he bent over it he saw the version of himself that he had left only moments ago. Bringing a hand up to his face, he stared at his newly youthful reflection.

"I'm young again." He whispered to himself

At the same time that this was happening you were making your way to the florist to pick up flowers that Pogo had ordered. As you walked to the shop you felt that something was wrong. No, not wrong, but different. From behind you, you felt a molecular disturbance and a giant one at that. As you continued to walk to the shop the physical pain grew so much that you had to stop and bend over. It felt like your insides were being torn apart bit by bit. Somehow managing to turn around you felt the direction it was coming from. It was coming from back towards the house. The pain of the disturbance went on for a few more seconds but then abruptly it stopped. Catching your breath, you stood back up but something felt familiar in a way. It was like an odd chill of deja vu but you had never experienced this before. But if the disturbance was coming from the house then the flowers could wait. Reginald didn't deserve flowers anyway. Quickly, you started sprinting back towards the Academy trying to get there as quickly as you could.

Back at the house, the five Hargreeves siblings sat around the kitchen table as they watched the newly returned Five make a sandwich. It had been years since they had last seen him and a lot had changed in that time. Everyone had their own thoughts and feelings on the matter and some were more upset than others. Five wasn't exactly sure what to say to them after all this time. It was quite a complicated situation to be in. Trying to not let his uncertainty show, Five stoically questioned,

"What is the date? The exact date."

The group stays quiet for a second before Vanya states,

"The 24th."

"Of?" Five pressed

"March," Vanya replies

"Good." Five comments

This was exactly the time that he was planning to be here, on the day of his father's funeral. Thank god that man was dead. If he was alive he would never hear the end of it.

"So are we gonna talk about what just happened?" Luther asks

It was no surprise to Five that Luther would speak up. Even after all this time, he was trying to take the lead on things. Instead of responding to his brother, Five puts two slices of bread down on a cutting board and focuses on his desired food item. He hadn't eaten all day and apparently paradox psychosis was a real energy drainer. He needed a second before he was going to explain anything. Standing up, Luther looks down to Five and states firmly,

"It's been 17 years."

"It's been a lot longer than that." Five replies immediately jumping behind Luther to find marshmallows

"I didn't miss that." Luther comments

While Five looks around the kitchen for the marshmallows, Diego asks accusingly,

"So where'd you go?"

Of course, an accusatory tone. How could Diego not have one? Five could just tell that Diego was upset not because he had disappeared for years but because he was the one that made you disappear for years. If only the siblings cared for each other as much as Diego cared for you, maybe things would be different. Five didn't have time for Diego's older brother shtick though. Jumping back to the table with the marshmallows, Five bluntly replied,

"The future. It's shit by the way."

"Called it!" Klaus exclaims

Five turned towards the refrigerator to get peanut butter for his sandwich, his mind wandering as he thought back to his time in the apocalypse. 45 years. He was so arrogant to think he could time travel. Grabbing the peanut butter jar, Five talks aloud,

"I should've listened to the old man. You know jumping through space is one thing, jumping through time is a toss of the dice."

Unscrewing the lid of the peanut butter jar Five looks up from the sandwich he was making and at his siblings before him. The last time he had seen them all together was as corpses. And before that, they were all still children. It was a lot to take in but he was focused on his task of stopping the apocalypse. He had the information he needed on what caused it, but he needed to find the right time to discuss it with everyone. Keeping a stoic look he tries to deflect his mind to something else by commenting to Klaus,

"Nice dress."

"Oh, Danke," Klaus responds playing with some of the loose straps

As he starts to assemble the sandwich he was making Vanya questions him,

"So how did you get back?"

"In the end, I had to project my consciousness forward into a suspended quantum state version of myself that exists across every possible instance of time." Five responds

"That makes no sense," Diego says confused

"Well, it would if you were smarter." Five remarks

Diego angrily stands up and stares down Five attempting to get towards him to attack him. Instead, Luther stands up puts out an arm to hold him back. Honestly, it didn't matter if Luther was there to stop Diego or not. He was all bark and no bite.

"How long were you there?" Luther asks

"45 years." Five states bluntly "Give or take."

Luther and Diego both sit back down in unison. All the siblings stare at their brother with wide eyes in shock at his statement. 45 years?

"So what are you saying? You're 58?" Luther asks

"No. My consciousness is 58. My body is 18 again." Five retorts

With his sandwich put together, Five walks off to the side of the table they all sat around and faces away from his siblings.

"How does that even work?" Vanya inquires

"I used the improper equation when I was forced through time." Five replies

"Improper equation?" Vanya questions

Electing to ignore Vanya's question, Five turns back towards his siblings at the table. There was no reason to explain all that had happened before he came here. It was unnecessary and would probably worry his siblings more than they needed to be, or perhaps even enrage them and there was no way he was going to stop the apocalypse if his siblings weren't willing to work together. Picking up a newspaper detailing the death of his father, Five takes a look at it before commenting unamused,

"Guessed I missed the funeral."

"How did you know about that?" Luther asks

"What part of the future do you not understand." Five remarks to him, his eyes not leaving the paper "Heart failure, huh?"

"Yeah," Diego says

"No," Luther adds

Ah, yes. One and Two still fighting to be the leader of the family as if it hadn't been years since the dissolution of the Umbrella Academy.

"Hmm. Nice to see nothing's changed." Five comments

The Hargreeves looked at their newly returned brother and as he stood there quietly, holding his sandwich he stared back awkwardly at his siblings. The prior self that he left in the '60s said that you would show up when the conversation with his siblings felt over. It felt pretty over right now and there was no sign of you. Five's heart started to race, everything had been laid out for him, and now nothing was going according to plan. Panicked, Five decided it was best to leave. Keeping a serious look on his face he started to walk out of the kitchen.

"Uh, that's it? That's all you have to say?" Allison questioned

"What else is there to say?" Five responded

When he was out of sight of his siblings he once again noticed how his suit didn't fit him properly anymore. He needed to change. Flashing upstairs he looked in the closets of his siblings but was met with academy uniform after academy uniform. Reluctantly, he took an academy uniform from Klaus' closet since it looked like it would fit best and put it on. He stared at himself in the mirror for a bit before deciding to head back downstairs.

Making it back to the house, you looked around, and only felt faint traces of a disturbance. Maybe you were going crazy? Heading through the front door you looked around the foyer and some other rooms on the main floor and upper floors but found no one. Maybe they all got in an argument and left, it's not like they enjoyed being here anyway. Letting out a small sigh you made your way back downstairs to the parlor. Someone would probably show up soon enough. You stood in the doorway for a second and stared at the portrait above the fireplace. You had hated the painting at first, but you tolerated its presence after years of coexisting with it. Carefully, you made your way over to the fireplace and looked up at the portrait that loomed over you. It was nothing like him. No light in his eyes, no cocky smile on his face, no personality. Just an emotionless and unrealistic replication of who he was. You wanted him to come back.

As you stared at his portrait, Five had made his way downstairs and took in what had become of his home. As he approached the parlor he saw a giant portrait of him on the wall and below it stood a familiar figure. Five stopped in his tracks and his heart began to race. This was his (Y/N). Five readjusted his jacket and tie and took in a breath before slowly starting to walk over to you. Hearing footsteps behind you, you stopped looking at the painting and turned to look where they came from. Seeing the figure before you, your eyes went wide with shock as the world around felt like it was slowing down. Carefully, you moved forward towards him almost as if in a trance, worried that if you moved too fast he would vanish. You extended your hand out and Five moved to meet you in the middle. When the two of you were close enough your fingertips lightly brushed his cheek, but you quickly pulled back, shocked by the feeling of something there.

"I think I'm hallucinating again," you whisper

Five reaches out and gently grabs the hand you had retracted. Bringing it closer to him he places it on top of his heart, holding your hand there. You can feel his heart beating rapidly beneath your hand as your own started to catch up to match his. You looked up at his face and gazed into his eyes. Tears prick your own as you softly ask,

"Five?"

Five smiled at you as he looked upon your face. You were so beautiful. Not that you weren't in the 60s but the way you looked at him now was different. It was soft and welcoming and felt like it was only for him. Leaning in just a little closer Five whispered to you,

"I'm here."

You let out a small gasp. He was here. This was real. Flinging your arms around him you held him tightly as Five wrapped his arms around to hold you back. No wonder his other self was so protective, who would ever want to let this go? You looked up at Five. A question had loomed on your mind ever since the day he vanished and you had to know the answer.

"Are you still mad at me?" You questioned nervously

Five saw the nervous look on your face. He knew that you had wondered if he was mad at you for a while. It was one of the last things you had said to him before you...died. Five took your face into his hands. Looking gently into your eyes he answered,

"I was never mad at you, to begin with. I was mad at my dad and one of my biggest regrets will always be taking that out on you and then leaving you all alone."

With his response, a weight fell off your shoulders. For so long you had thought you were the one that drove him away. You thought he was mad at you all this time, but to know that wasn't the case made you feel so much better.

"So you didn't purposely stay away?" You asked

"No, how could I ever choose to be away from my best friend?" Five added

You looked off to the side as best as you could, given that your face was held between his hands, and hoped that he didn't notice the blush rising to your cheeks.

"I don't know, but I missed you." You mumbled

Five took his hands from your face and hugged you once more responding,

"I missed you too. Not a day went by when I didn't."

You smiled knowing that Five had missed you as much as you missed him. Day after day, month after month, year after year, you thought of him as you waited for him to come back. And now here he was before you telling you he felt the same way. It was all that you needed to hear. Well...there were other things you wanted to hear but those were more so desires than necessities. You were just happy to have him back.

"Pull that shit again and I'll kill you." You joke as you give him a small shove away

"I promise I won't." Five replies with a smirk "Although I don't think you would kill me anyway."

"Perhaps." You respond

Five threw his hands into the pockets of his academy shorts and looked at you.

"Care to walk and talk around the house?" Five offered

"Of course. Would you like me to turn invisible so you look insane for old times sake?"

"I already look insane in this uniform." Five joked

"You always did. C'mon, let's go." You say extending your hand towards him

Five looks at your hand, almost hesitant to take it because none of this felt real. Even though he had been around you not too long ago back in the 60s, this truly was different. This version of you hadn't seen him since the day he left. Unlike prior you who had experienced being around him, you had waited every day for his return. There was an excitement and awe that he got from you this time around that made him nervous. As Five thought more about the situation before him he froze up. As much as he trusted you when you said that you loved him the way he loved you Five still couldn't help but wonder if his other self just had better circumstances. He still worried that maybe that version really was just lucky. Five didn't want to get this wrong, but nevertheless, he took your hand. Fingers intertwining, there was electricity you both felt but would not tell the other.

With a smile, you started to walk around the house as you had done many times before, both of you trying your best to catch the other up. The conversation came easy as if the two of you were never separated. Five took in the sights of his old home. Nothing had really changed since he left, minus the small presence you had created. There was a newer piano in the parlor and you had shown off your wonderful room to him. He remembered your description of it from your diary and how you changed it from being Diego's to yours but it was even better in person. As you two exited your room Five looked down the hall at a shut door. It was his room. Five made his way there and you followed behind. Carefully, he opened the door to it and stepped inside. Once more you followed behind and thinking that the sight of his childhood room might be tough for him, you shut the door.

As you shut the door though Allison who had been heading to her room happened to pass by and noticed the two of you in there. Something about you two being together again reignited the feelings of her youth. She remembered the times when you and she had traded secrets about your crushes. The gossip in her immediately needed to tell someone else. Turning back around she went downstairs and noticed the rest of her siblings in the parlor again. Approaching them all she said,

"I don't want to alert anyone but Five and (Y/N) went into Five's room and shut the door."

"WHAT?!" Diego shouted as he angrily turned to face her

"Oooh, juicy," Klaus commented "I remember being 18 and hormonal. Horniness levels are through the roof, I mean-"

"NOT ON MY WATCH!" Diego yelled cutting Klaus off

There was no way his baby sister was going to be in a room with a boy alone. Especially not with the boy who had left her alone and broke her heart. What was he going to do? Break it again? Not if he had anything to say about it. With his fists clenched tight Diego started to march his way out of the parlor. He was going to protect his little tiny princess, but as he attempted to go, Luther, with his superior strength, held him back.

"Let me go, Luther!" Diego yelled

"We shouldn't just barge in there Diego." Luther criticizes

"That's MY little sister!" Diego retorts

"There are better ways of approaching this," Luther replies

"I want to know what's going on though..." Vanya comments

"Me too," Allison adds

As the group stands around debating Ben leans over to Klaus and says,

"Klaus."

"What do you want?" Klaus replies annoyed

"Is that camera we bought as kids still in Five's room?" Ben asks

"Yeah, we never took it out. Why?"

"The tablet to watch the video feed on is in my closet." Ben states

Klaus looks at him confused for a second before realizing what Ben meant. Getting excited Klaus exclaims,

"Guys! Guys!"

The rest of the group looks over to him confused and with all of their attention grabbed Klaus continues,

"The video camera we got as kids is still in Five's room and the tablet is in Ben's closet!"

"Do you think it still even works?" Allison questions

"It's worth a try," Luther says

The group looks at each other before silently nodding in agreement. Together they head up to Ben's room and search for the tablet in his closet. Finding it they turn on the switch and to their surprise, it works. The picture quality was not as great as they remember but clear enough that they all can see what is going on. As they all stand over the tablet Diego says annoyed,

"Alright Five, what are you hiding from me."

"From us." Luther corrects

The two brothers glare at each other before turning their attention back to the tablet and the two of you in Five's room. Five stepped into his room quietly taking in the surroundings. Nothing had changed, it was as if his room was frozen in time. As he looks around you slowly approach his side. Standing next to him you looked around the room as well and comment,

"It's an odd feeling. Knowing that time has passed but everything looks the same."

Five looks towards you. Of course, you knew the feeling he was going through.

"No worries though, we'll get you everything you need to make this place feel like home again." You mention

"I already have everything I need to feel at home." Five replies, his hand holding yours just a little tighter

Five gazes in your direction but as he does so he notices something behind you. Letting go of your hand he steps around you curious and makes his way over to his desk. Looking down at the object placed there he realized that it's the radio he had taken from Allison all those years ago. Confused as to what he was looking at you followed him towards the desk and saw the radio.

"I can't believe it's still here after all this time." Five comments

"Well we never gave it back and I'm guessing nobody wanted to come take it after..." You mention trailing off

"Yeah..." Five replies before questioning "I wonder if it still works?"

You shrugged your shoulders and gestured to the old electronic encouraging him to see if it worked. Leaning down Five plugs in the old radio before pressing the on button. The sound of static blasts loudly through the speakers causing both of you to flinch back a little in shock. After a moment Five started to turn the knob to tune the radio, searching through for a station that was clear. Soon the static started to fade and in its place music could be heard.

As the camera continues to spy on the two of you, the rest of the Hargreeves siblings watch what goes on from Ben's room. Seeing the working radio Allison exclaims,

"Hey, it's my radio! I never got it back!"

"Allison, it's been years and still no one cares about your radio." Klaus comments "We want to know what's up with Five and (Y/N)."

Allison lets out a huff and crosses her arms. Just because it was old and she hadn't been in possession of it or thought about it for years didn't mean it wasn't hers. Even with her pouting, the siblings continued to observe. As they did so Diego aggressively says,

"Alright Five what shit are you going to pull now?"

"I don't think he's going to do anything." Vanya comments "I mean there's nothing wrong with them being happy."

Back in Five's room, music flowed through the air as Five leaned against the edge of his desk, watching you look around the place. He was absolutely enthralled by you. The most mundane of things seemed extravagant just because you were there with him. A wide smile appeared on his face as he remembered a similar time he had spent with you. You took in the room silently as the upbeat music played. It had been a bit since you'd last been in Five's room, but for the first time in a while it felt warm and bright again. Looking over your shoulder you looked back towards Five and noticed the smile on his face.

"What?" You questioned

"Nothing." Five replied with a shake of his head

"Nothing? The mind of Five Hargreeves is completely empty?" You joke sarcastically "This is something I'd expect from your brothers, not you."

Five rolled his eyes at you but he missed your quick wit. No one at the commission could keep up with him like you could. As you walked back over to him, Five could see the look on your face waiting for him to elaborate.

"I was just thinking-" Five starts to explain before being cut off

"Ah, so you were thinking!" You comment back

"Yes." Five replies letting out a small laugh "I was thinking about how this reminds me of our friendiversary a bit."

"Yeah, kind of, minus the food and flowers." You reply

You were right, there was no food and flowers. How could he even think to compare the two times when this time wasn't as perfect? Quickly standing up from the desk, Five starts to make his way over to the door as he states worried,

"Do you want food and flowers?"

Reaching out, you grab his hand preventing him from going any further. Stopping in his tracks he looks back towards you confused at your action. Gently, you pull his hand back towards you, causing him to come back close to you. With his hand still in yours, Five asks confused,

"Do you not want food and flowers?"

"No, Five." You replied with a smile "I just want you."

For a moment, Five could feel his heart stop. Although his expression seemed calm and collected, internally he had no clue what to do. He was so preoccupied trying to figure out how to get back to 2019 so he could stop the apocalypse that he never stopped to think fully about what would happen when he actually did so. And it wasn't until he met himself that he even found out being a teenager again was a possibility. This was the most unprepared he had ever been and the nerves he felt on your friendiversary were nothing compared to the nerves he felt now. If you didn't want food or flowers then what could he do? And then from the radio, he heard the voice of the announcer,

"This is Arlo Vegas with 103.5 WKTU. I hope that even with all the doom and gloom outside today everyone can stay high and dry. Up next, a throwback to 2017 this is Adore by Dean Lewis."

I'm just gonna stand with my bag hanging off my left arm I'm just gonna walk home kicking stones at parked cars But I had a great night, 'cause you kept rubbing against my arm So I'm just gonna stand with my bag hanging off my left arm

Five looked towards the radio as the sound of a soft guitar slowly playing and the lyrics of the song enveloped the room. As the music played he remembered the part of your friendiversary that he could never forget. He remembered how the two of you danced that night and the joy he felt in that moment. Looking back towards you he nervously asked,

"Would you like to dance...with me?"

"I'd love to." You replied longingly

Five guided you the few steps towards the center of his room taking a quiet breath as he tried to calm his nerves. How did he do this so easily as a child? Oh right, he didn't realize he was in love with you then. Turning back to face you he saw as your eyes lit up and your smile widened. So much for breathing when you took his breath away so easily. Gently, he took one of your hands in his as he wrapped his other arm around your waist. You wrapped your free arm around his neck as the two of you slowly started to dance to the music.

Get me a drink, I get drunk off one sip, just so I can adore you I want the entire street out of town just so I can be alone with you Now go when you're ready My head's getting heavy, pressed against your arm I adore you

"So is this what your prom was like last week?" Five asked

You looked up towards him slightly confused. How did he know about your prom? It took you a second to remember but you then recalled that he had come from the future so he had to have found out about it somehow. You recalled your prom only a week ago, it was fun to be with your friends but it was definitely not the same experience as dancing with Five. With a slight chuckle, you answer.

"No, it was not like this."

"Oh, why not?" Five questions

"Well dancing with you is quite different than dancing with Dean, because neither of us had dates and we pitied each other." You explained

"I wish I could've come a week earlier then. I would've saved you the pity by dancing with your brother." Five joked

"Wow, okay." You laughed

"I'm joking." Five explained, his expression softening as he added "I'd never pass up a chance to dance with you."

"Neither would I." you replied quietly

All of my money is spent on these nights, just so we can hang out Spacing in and out of your dresses, I wanna be found by you Found by you

As the two of you swayed you couldn't help but rest your head against his chest. A small smile appeared on your face as you closed your eyes and comfortably melted into the moment. Unconsciously, you started to stroke the hair at the back of his head casing Five to lean into your touch. It was so gentle and soft. Five could feel his heart start to pick up its pace. He hoped that you couldn't hear so because he had no clue how he would explain it to you. Granted, he knew all the words he wanted to say to you but he didn't know if he'd even be able to get them out.

As your head rested on top of him a thought came to your mind. It was something that you hadn't done in a while and something you had desired to do. Lifting your head up, you look towards Five who looks back down towards you. Had he done something wrong? Did you hear how fast his heart was beating? Quietly you ask,

"Will you spin me?"

Relief washes over Five's system as he gives you a soft smile.

"Of course I will," He replies

Slightly breaking away from you he helps to twirl you around, the smile on your face filling his heart to the point he felt it was going to burst. Your laughter filled the room as you enjoyed your time with your best friend. You couldn't think of anything to make the moment better. Five spins you back in towards him before spinning you out once more. As you spin out quickly your grip on his hand slips and you start to fall back. Quickly, Five flashes over and catches you. His arms wrapped tightly around your waist as yours find their way around his neck.

She kicks the gutter in tight shorts, basketball courts Watch me, watch her talk to boys I'm known as a right-hand slugger Anybody else wanna touch my lover?

The two of you look at each other both trying to catch your slight breaths from the burst of adrenaline that just occurred.

"I told you I wasn't going to let you fall." Five comments

It was too late for that though. You had fallen for him years ago in a situation exactly like this one. There was something different about it this time, an energy you had never felt before. Your eyes were still locked on each other he slowly brought you back up. The soft bridge of the song played in the back but all either of you could hear was the beating of your own hearts. Wrapped up tightly in each other's arms there was no space between the two of you. Each of you wanted to say so many things, wanted to shout the thoughts that raced in your mind, the ones you always had, but no words came out. As Five stood there with you in his arms he finally started to understand what you meant back in the 60s when you said the pieces would fall into place. Everything about this moment felt right like it was meant to be. Like he was meant to be here with you. As you continued to look into each other's eyes there was a magnetism that pulled you closer. Your faces inched closer as the space between you lessened more and more. For a moment you both wondered if you were dreaming but no, this was real. You were here with each other. And as the climax of the final verse hit, your eyes closed as your lips gently pressed against each other.

Tenderly, you both expressed everything you wanted to tell the other without saying any words at all. The years of pining and longing to be reunited had finally culminated into something beautiful. Something you both had desired for a very long time. The world around you faded away leaving only the two of you and your newly acknowledged love for each other. Removing his arms from your waist he took your face in his hands, pulling you closer and deepening the kiss. He never wanted to leave this moment. This was all he ever wanted, this is what he survived and fought for and now to have it? It felt unreal to him. But it was real. He had you, and you had him, and nothing would ever take that away now.

I adore you

Neither of you wanted to be the first to part from the kiss but as the final lyric of the song ended the two of you slowly separated. With eyes still closed, you rested your foreheads against each other, relishing in the beautiful moment. As Five held you close, he knew he needed to tell you something. Even if he had expressed it in his kiss to you, he wanted to verbalize it, to make it know and make it real. Moving one of his hands from your cheek to your chin, he tilted your face up to look at him. As he gazed into your eyes, with adoration in his voice, he whispered,

"I love you, (Y/N)."

You could feel your stomach flutter with butterflies as you processed his words. There was nothing you wanted to hear more than those words. Finally getting to express how you felt, you replied breathlessly,

"I love you too, Five. You know what this means now though."

"What?" Five questioned

"You can never leave me again." You answer

"I promise nothing will ever tear us apart again. Not people, not distance, not time, nothing."

The two of you looked at each other lovingly before leaning in for another kiss. As you did so the siblings in the other room saw everything.

"Awww," Vanya said as she placed a hand over her heart

"They're so cute!" Allison exclaimed

"They are not!" Diego remarks angrily as he tries to make his way to the door "I'm going to go in there and stop him."

"Luther, stop him." Allison requests

Doing as she says, Luther wraps his arms around Diego from behind and picks him off the ground. Kicking his legs and wriggling around, Diego fights like a child trying to escape Luther's grasp.

"That is my little princess! I need to put a stop to this!" Diego complains

"She is 18, you need to let her live her life," Allison replies

"Not with him! The one who ruined it." Diego retorts

"I don't think she sees it that way," Vanya interjects

As the other siblings argue with Diego, Ben leans over to Klaus and states,

"If I was alive you would owe me $20 bucks right now. I told you they'd come back and get together before Allison and Luther would."

"Oh, shut up," Klaus replies

The rest of the group looks over to Klaus before looking back at the still flailing Diego.

"Klaus makes a good point. You need to drop this and shut up Diego." Allison states

"I will not!" Diego replies back

"If you don't calm down, drop the issue, and let them be happy I will rumor you into doing so." Allison threatens

It takes a moment but Diego soon stops his fighting. He was not going to be rumored into ignoring the situation but for now, he would put it off. Letting out a huff, Diego relents,

"Fine."

"Good, now let's shut down this camera and just leave them be. We can talk to them later." Luther commands as he puts Diego back down

And so as the siblings tried to quietly file out of Ben's room and go off to do other things, this version of Five and you stayed happily together ready to take on whatever the future threw at them.

____________________________________

Taglist: @xplrreylo @joebob15274 @insatiable-ivy @fruitsaladtree @angelpeachamber @academy-umbrella @lizziel1410 @ir3neeee @faith-quake @aliens-with-colas @sunsetcurve-1995 @lady-celeste25 @im-dead-and-hurting @nerdypinupcrystal @cherry-ki-d @anapocalypseinmymind @vicassa @2cuteforyourlies @taylorsmakingfuckingmacandcheese @n1ghtsh4d3-67 @cheshire-salvatore-mikaelson @shadowycreationcupcake @emily-hargreeves @metor-showers1994 @fivehargreevesforthewin @rinko-san @supernovavision @cicilisthebest @flickbix @hi-v-juice @magykal-777 @zosiaduda @thethirdwheelfriend @mysticracoon @isnt-it-loverly @officiallydarkgeek @lady1505 @always-the-very-worst @tinypandagirl @libidinexx @lemongrabbuns @itwasallred @deadandoverit @shlokage @keksi249 @theoriginalkat @we-stan-fiction @bi-idiot-fanfics @annnagennnie @izzyjojo4 @megasimpleplan4ever @flowertoty @grabthemoneyandletsgo @itsametaphorbriansblog @vanillacaramelhoney @satvaldiva @disaster-magician @margotsfandoms @emily-b-m @bluechildrenlickmytoes @soft-slytherin-sweetie @oceanspray5 @im-here-for-fanfics @thebloodrobin @freestarlight @starcurrent @lilacs-lavender @moatsnow @give-the-boy-a-hug @narikyuwu @whenyouregrungeaff @gabriella-aesthetic @xxtwizztedxx

#The Umbrella Academy #Umbrella Academy #umbrella acedmy #tua #tua2 #UA #number five #five hargreeves #five hargreeves x reader #the umbrella academy five #umbrella academy five

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lokigayforhela · 3 years ago

Text

Tantamount, Chapter Two

WC: 1201

Rating: G

TW: None

A/N: Hello, all! I just want to say thank you for all the interest in this little fic. I kinda came up with the idea on a whim, and now I have a whole document just for plotting and planning it out to work with both MCU canon AND the What If... episode canon, so like... hoo boy. Anyway, enjoy this chapter!

[AO3 Link]

Previous Chapter .......... Next Chapter

Chapter Two: Stalemate

You spent the better part of a fortnight in much the same manner as you had for as long as you had been in your cage.

You slept, you woke, you ate the meals transported into your cage, and killed time until you had to go back to sleep. Rinse. Repeat.

The only difference was that you now had the discordant noise of the new prisoner as background music to your days.

You really had assumed she would tire of the whole ordeal after a while, just as all the others always did, especially with the way she had seemed to wear herself out entirely after just a few minutes of doing so the first day she’d been there. Yet every morning, like clockwork, you woke to the sound of her banging on the glass of her cage while she growled strings of insults and curse words, and every night, you fell asleep in the same way, the anger in her voice so palpable that you swore you could feel the words like hot coals burning in the air between your cages.

The first few days, it was admittedly a little amusing and entertaining. You’d never seen someone react to being put in a cage quite like this stranger.

Then it was sad, to think that she actually thought that she might get somewhere if she just kept it up for a little while longer.

And then it was just plain frustrating, and mildly annoying, to have even the sound of your own voice in your head drowned out by her pure fury.

You could tell the others were getting tired of it, as well, though they weren’t nearly as kind about it as you were. They would yell profanities and their own threats at her in a desperate attempt to get some peace and quiet for just a bit. But usually that would just result in her insulting them back, which would then turn into a screaming match so passionate that you swore you could hear others in the near vicinity placing bets on who would have the final word.

She certainly had fire, you could admit as much.

But you just wanted some peace and quiet again, so you could go back to moping about your circumstances to yourself.

It was late on the twelfth evening (you thought; time seemed to pass differently when you were caged in a room with no light and no way to tell how the days passed other than sleeping), when you finally decided enough was enough, and you heaved a sigh, sitting up and looking over at the woman’s cage.

“Could you please give it up, it’s not going to work!” You had meant for your voice to have a little more bite to it, but you were tired, sad, and were going on three days with a headache from all the continued noise, and you were desperate for some respite.

To your surprise, she did actually stop banging against the cage. But when she turned to look at you, you could see the absolute rage in her eyes, though you weren’t entirely sure it was really directed at you.

“It isn’t my fault the rest of you have all succumbed to this depressing place. Tell me, what’s so appealing about being locked in a cage, having your food brought to you like an animal? Hm? Perhaps the appeal is in the ability to sit here and do nothing all day, every day, is that it? Is that why you’re all so content to just sit here and take it?”

You blinked at her, not entirely sure that you had understood what she was implying. “You think we like being in these cages? You think we enjoyed being ripped away from everything and everyone we’ve ever known to be put here on display like an object meant purely for adoration?! We had lives! We had families and loved ones and homes. Just like you did!”

The woman scoffed. “And yet here you are, content to sit in your little cage and be looked at. Pathetic.”

“Me? You think I’m the one that’s pathetic? You’re screaming to someone who doesn’t. give. a shit. And he never will! You’re just a decoration to him! A pretty little relic to be admired. And it doesn’t matter how much you kick and fight and scream, that won’t change anything! You lost! You’ve. Lost.”

That finally seemed to give her pause, and she looked at you, and for a moment, you swore you could see actual hurt in her gaze. And then it disappeared, replaced with a much more muted, defeated anger. “I don’t lose.”

“Apparently, you do.” You didn’t mean to say it so meanly, but that was how it came out, and there was no changing it, even as the woman went back to scowling.

For a long moment, that was all that she did, and you were just about to lay back down to try and get some sleep when she finally spoke, voice lacking the bite it had held before. “You would do well not to speak on things that you know nothing about, girl.”

You huffed out a dry laugh, but didn’t turn back to look at her. “My name’s Y/N. You would do well to use it, if you’re going to keep trying to insult me.”

The woman made a noise that sounded slightly of amusement, but when you glanced back over at her, her face was almost infuriatingly expressionless. “You humans are always so sensitive.”

For a moment you considered asking her how she knew you were human just by looking at her, but then she curled up on herself, back to you as she fell silent, and you ended up just looking at her for a long time.

It was obvious that she was angry, and also extremely high on herself, and while those were certainly two things that could coexist together, there was something else about her that you couldn’t quite put a finger on. Something that felt… off. Not right. There was almost a sort of underlying panic to the way she acted. The animosity in her eyes. The way she had looked at you when you told her that it was hopeless. Like she needed it not to be. Like she didn’t know what she was going to do, if there wasn’t a way for her to get out of captivity.

And you couldn’t stop thinking about the way she seemed to get so completely exhausted, like she had that first day she was there. You recalled the Collector mentioning that she was weakened due to Asgard being destroyed, but you weren’t entirely sure you were smart enough to comprehend the full severity of a statement like that.

There was certainly much more to this woman than she was letting on, and you were determined to find out more about her, one way or another.

But for now, you were tired, and for the first time in nearly two weeks, it was quiet.

Deciding to let your thoughts rest for a while, you laid yourself back down, and allowed yourself to fall into a deep, dreamless slumber.

#Hela x reader #Hela Odinsdottir x reader #Hela #Hela Odinsdottir #Marvel #hurt/comfort #angst #eventual romance #eventual fluff #eventual happy ending

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itsclydebitches · 4 years ago

Note

None of them liked Ironwoods growingly tyrannical actions, it's the whole reason Ruby lies to him, he looked shady as hell. They are shown very clearly uncomfortable with what he's turned Atlas into in the First episode. It's just that at the end of Volime 7 he crossed the line.

The key words there are “first episode.” I’ve mentioned on other posts that if the plot had simply continued the forward momentum of the group being disgusted with Ironwood’s choices and working against him (hiding out in the city, gathering like-minded allies, etc.) then we would have been golden. Ironwood is Volume 7’s antagonist. There, done. The problem is what starts in the second episode. Our basic events are as follows:

The group (and audience) learn that Ironwood has arguably justified reasons for everything “shady as hell” that he’s done. The embargo? They are at war with Salem and people have been stealing resources since our introductory trailers (Blake). Soldiers in the streets? That first episode showed that grimm are attacking defenseless civilians and, if the soldiers hadn’t been there to fend the grimm off prior to Penny’s arrival, they likely would have died. Taking resources? That’s to re-establish global communications and enact a plan to stop Salem for good, freeing the world from the danger she presents.

However, they’re still morally gray choices which our group could have opposed… but they didn’t. They join Ironwood as public allies (standing with Clover and Penny against Robyn), as Inner Circle allies (they learn all of Ironwood’s plans—and we learn that he never lied to them), as huntsmen (it’s his power as general that gives them their licenses), and as fellow soldiers (they are indistinguishable from the Ace Ops in the missions they conduct). Now toss in a bunch of other connections like living in his academy, taking his weapon upgrades, and carrying the Relic. They might not like his actions, but they’re certainly doing everything possible to support and reap the benefits of them.

Ruby does lie to him… which two in the group oppose (however lackluster that was). Yang and Oscar both question the wisdom of doing the very thing they punished Ozpin for. Ren also develops a strong (if quiet) alliance with Ironwood that will carry into Volume 8... until his semblance changed and he forgot about it.

During all this there are efforts—mostly through Nora—to condemn Ironwood for his choices. How can you continue to hurt the people like this? Same answer as above: because he believes a short-term struggle is worth the long-term victory. Nora doesn’t agree… but Ruby, the leader, does. She pushes Ironwood to finish Amity somehow.

Which is an incredibly strange stance to take considering she knows that amassing a world-wide army will not defeat Salem. If the group wants Ironwood to stop hurting Mantle, all they have to do is tell him that Salem is immortal… but they don’t. They let him continue under this false belief, despite having more information about this war than he does and despite that information being the key to stopping the harm he’s enacting.

The arc of the volume is not the group choosing to trust Ironwood and then realizing he actually isn’t trustworthy, it’s the group (or rather, Ruby) deciding not to trust Ironwood and then realizing he is trustworthy. We get that climactic scene of Ruby and Oscar simultaneously realizing they should tell him about Salem and Oscar apologizing for keeping that secret in the first place.

Note that this occurs after they’ve talked him into telling Mantle about her. So not only is the group not made up of mindless subordinates being ordered about by a powerful general—it’s their advice Ironwood listens to—but now they’ve put an entire city in the position they were in during Volume 6. We’re told, via Ozpin’s arc, that telling people about Salem without including the issue of her immortality is a horrific thing to do. Those like Qrow have supposedly “wasted” their lives fighting an impossible war and the fandom has argued strongly that Ozpin has manipulated everyone involved in this fight by not giving them the full picture. Yet now, the group has spent months keeping that information from Ironwood when his questionable choices are based on that ignorance, and they’ve talked him into telling half his population that Salem exists and they should rise up to fight her… but not the pesky detail that she’s immortal. They did to Ironwood and all of Mantle exactly what Ozpin did to them.

Immediately after hearing that they’ve kept this secret from him the entire time they’ve been here (which he takes very well) Ironwood captures one of their main villains, loses his arm in the process, learns that two in the group have outright betrayed him to a political enemy, learns that despite all their best efforts Cinder has just waltzed into his office, learns that Salem herself is on her way and their defenses are already gone, knows that everyone is exhausted from a major battle… so when he decides to take all of Atlas, the majority of Mantle, and the Relics/Maiden they have to try and get out of Salem’s reach… Ruby says no. What’s her plan? She doesn’t have one. You’re just not allowed to leave.

The problem with the writing is it wants us to believe two contradictory things at once. Looking back, Ironwood is meant to be seen as an unambiguously bad guy in Volume 7, which we know because of scenes like Winter’s fight wherein she condemns him for everything he did in Volume 7, not just Volume 8 stuff like threatening to bomb Mantle. Yet at the same time, we’re simultaneously meant to believe that the group is made up of unambiguously good people who function as direct contrasts to Ironwood. Given what we got, these two things cannot coexist! Either Ironwood was a good man who the heroes backed for an entire volume and there’s no acknowledgment of that, or Ironwood was a bad man… who the heroes backed for an entire volume and there’s no acknowledgment of that either. If the group’s defense is, “We knew he was shady as hell. We knew what he was doing was wrong. We knew he was the bad guy here… but we still helped him maintain power, forward his plans, and reap the benefits of the flawed system for months on end”… that’s really bad. “I supported, assisted, and benefited from the guy who was shady as hell, but that’s fine because I felt uncomfortable about it the whole time” is not the hot take the fandom wants it to be. We cannot make these broad, sweeping statements about how the Atlas military—merged with its huntsmen—is an Evil Thing and then show scenes like, say, Jaune using his military grade huntsmen license to convince a bunch of civilians to follow his evacuation plan. The heroes cannot be Good and Pure while supporting the supposed villains and their systems; or, the villains cannot be purely Bad and Evil if they’re supported by the heroes.

The reality is that RWBY is badly written and this sort of simplistic, inconsistent writing doesn’t lend itself to a topic as complex as this one. To be frank, we don’t even know enough to make informed decisions about these actions because the world building is nearly nonexistent. What are these “resources” and how are the resources to patch a hole in the wall the same as the resources used to make Amity Tower into a world-wide communication device? How much power does Ironwood actually have and what other decisions has he made that impact Mantle? We never hear about any policies to explain things like the poor conditions, or the slum areas with the faunus. Why are the civilians so against the soldiers patrolling when we don’t see them abusing the public in any way, but we do see the grimm threatening them on the regular? Why does Ruby want Amity built so badly—willing to hurt Mantle to do it—when she knows a bigger army isn’t the answer/that telling people about Salem has almost always led to panic and betrayal? Is there really any difference between huntsmen and soldiers here? And if the answer is, “Yes. Huntsmen aren’t beholden to any power. That’s a good thing because following orders is Bad. They do what they think is best” than what are we supposed to make of someone like Rhodes who, apparently, did what he thought was best? If he’d been beholden to some superior there might have been a system in place to help Cinder. As it was, he was left to his own devices and a lot of fans are furious with the solution he, as one flawed individual, came up with. We simply don’t have a good picture of this world and when we do, things constantly contradict. It’s good for huntsmen to make their own choices, but only when Ruby does it, not Rhodes. It’s bad for heroes to keep the Salem secret and tell lies to their allies, but only when Ozpin does it, not Ruby. It’s bad for someone to try and save who they’ve got, but only when Ironwood does it, not Ruby, who apparently left Atlas after failing to create portals for her Uncle, Robyn, the Ace Ops, Pietro, Maria, and an entire army.

The way that the fandom gets around these problems—because too few are willing to just acknowledge that they are problems and RWBY is shoddily written—is by simplistically comparing RWBY’s military to a real world one. I cannot tell you how many posts I’ve come across that amount to, “Imagine thinking the teenage girls are the bad guys when a military general is right there, being a military general 😒 ” Those posts imply that fans like me are too stupid (too brainwashed, too close to “bootlickers”) to be critical of the military, but I assure you, that’s as far from true as can be. Those posts are trying to conflate real life politics with a fantasy story whose world looks nothing like our own. The is not a question of being critical of the military, it’s a question of being critical of RWBY as that fictional text… and that fiction never established any of the military problems we deal with in the real world. It might have (very easily), but it didn’t. Is Ironwood leveraging his people to conquer others or go after wealth? No, his world has literal, unambiguously evil monsters to fight. Does he amass power out of a desire to control the people? No, he lays out his exact thoughts on how these measures will help protect against those monsters and a witch. Does the military abandon its soldiers after war, leaving them with few resources and fewer prospects? No, we never see anyone struggling in that manner and one of the most prominent tragedies—Yang losing a limb—is answered by Ironwood personally sending a replacement to her home. Is the military at least built around propaganda, painting civilians an inaccurate picture of Freedom and Glory to convince them to fight? No, we see no propaganda, Ironwood—since Volume 2—has been focused on replacing people with robots and our entire story is built around one child’s desire to fight the exact same battle. Why do you want to be a huntress, Ruby? Because I want to help people! And that goal is never painted as a naïve outlook that Ruby becomes disillusioned with. Posts like the one mentioned above bank 100% on the reader mapping real life military criticism onto RWBY… rather than actually looking at the world RWBY built, what choices the characters make, the amount of information we’re given (little), and whether that in any way reflects our current, political problems. It doesn’t.

I’m never going to pretend there weren’t problems with Ironwood’s decisions. In fact, I love that this was actually a conflict in Volume 3 that gave both sides a fair shake: is it better to scare people and have an army at the ready to defend them, or is it better to keep them in the dark and potentially be defenseless? Ironwood’s kind heart bumping up against extreme measures is what made him compelling, especially when the story was having him grow in the “right” direction (AKA, listening to Ozpin). His treatment of Penny is another big issue, creating a whole ass person to serve as a military defense tool. That’s horrifying! So he’s absolutely had his problems long before the writing had him turn into a trigger-happy murderer, but part of the issue here is that the writing doesn’t acknowledge those problems in other characters. If Ironwood is “shady as hell” for forwarding a military agenda and using military resources… then so is Ruby, the leader who backed that for months. If Ironwood is “shady as hell” for funding the creation of a person to defend his kingdom… then so is Pietro, the scientist who not only built Penny, but came up with the idea in the first place. He’s not some defenseless victim who was forced by the evil Ironwood to create something morally reprehensible, he suggested it! The same way Winter wasn’t some defenseless victim who was forced by the evil Ironwood to go along with these plans. She supported them, agreed to be his Maiden, and was the first to suggest martial law! Yet Ruby, Pietro, Winter and their like are all presented as unambiguously Good People, whereas Ironwood is presented as the unambiguous Bad Guy—and when a lot of fans went, “But you’re not writing him like a Bad Guy? Especially when we compare him to the heroes?” we got his sudden, OOC murder streak in Volume 8. But it doesn’t work. Either the group is made up of morally gray/bad people because they did the things our antagonist Ironwood did, or Ironwood is not the morally gray/bad person the show insists he is (prior to Volume 8) because he did the same things as our heroes. You cannot give us that plot, those choices, that agency and insist on both at once. This problem has existed ever since we got an entire volume about how simplistically evil Ozpin is for keeping this secret… only for Ruby to immediately turn around and keep it herself, with no acknowledgement that either a) Ozpin wasn’t the bad guy then or b) Ruby is as bad as he is. But the show wants Ruby to be the Good Person in every situation, no matter how much she models her behavior after those she deems her enemies, and Ironwood’s arc only increased that problem tenfold.

#rwby #mymetas #tempoaryblogformightyjensblog

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rotationalsymmetry · 3 years ago

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Re: the c-punk discourse going around

Ok but also: when I say “healthy people don’t experience the same intensity of fatigue as chronically ill people do” that is a factual statement and it is based on my experience as a chronically ill spoonie who used to not be chronically ill.

When a person with physical disabilities and mental illness talks about a higher level of stigma and dismissal around mental illness — and people with both have talked about this, even if there’s also people with only mental illness who talk about it as well — that’s also coming from a place of personal experience and is also true.

I kind of feel like that’s being tossed aside here. That — this is not a statement of who overall has it worse — that this specific thing is actually different and not a thing people with all forms of disability experience to the same degree.

I kinda suspect what’s going on, because I’ve seen this in other contexts (specifically lesbians losing their shit over a study that shows bisexuals have it worse off in certain specific, measurable ways), is that some physically disabled people consciously or not have a mental oppression hierarchy where they have it strictly worse, or at least never less bad, in all respects compared to mentally ill people, and do not like that already existing hierarchy challenged. So they conflate “that hierarchy doesn’t exist” with “the exact opposite hierarchy also exists.” You also see that with people talking about gay or trans “ideologies” (as though heterosexuality and the gender binary aren’t indoctrinated into kids) and monogamous people flipping out at the possibility of polyamory completely replacing monogamy just because polyamorous people exist. As though both coexisting is impossible.

But maybe that’s uncharitable and what I’m seeing as “mentally ill people experience a higher level of dismissal and positive-thinking-ism from abled people” (a true and reasonable statement) gets read by some as “physically disabled people never experience this at all,” which is a reasonable thing to object to, I just think it’s not the most natural interpretation of the post in question. Given the absolutely overwhelming and pervasive degree to which mental illness is dismissed and minimized and treated as a choice or a character flaw by almost everyone, including many people who are themselves mentally ill. (Possibly more so for relatively common mental illnesses like depression, anxiety, and bipolar than idk schizophrenia or whatever, I’ve been trying to learn more but I’m still pretty ignorant about many of the more heavily stigmatized mental illnesses.) (goodness knows the personality disorders and addictions are treated primarily as character flaws.)

When I was seeking diagnosis for what I now understand to be CFS, I got a referral to a therapist for “depression” and when I said I was too tired to keep a weekly therapy appointment I got flat out ignored. Like “I’m your doctor, I found the solution, what are you complaining about?” Now granted the way doctors deal with my CFS post diagnosis isn’t optimal either, but CFS is kind of notorious for that, because it’s sort of double invisible: there generally aren’t signs the doctors (and the general public) can see with their own eyes, and there aren’t abnormal test results either. And to a large degree, when CFS patients get treated badly it’s precisely because doctors mistake our condition for being psychological in nature. And assume “psychological in nature” and “the only barrier is how you’re thinking about it, so you could do all those things you’re currently not doing if you just decided you could” are 100% the same thing.

I’m inclined to assume a lot of physically disabled people are just as prone to being dismissive of mental illness as the general population, because why wouldn’t they be? So are a lot of people who are themselves mentally ill. People kind of suck at believing in things we can’t see.

fundamentally this argument should be about “is mental illness stigmatized and minimized and indeed marginalized within the disability community as a whole and what do we do about it” and not, essentially, “are mentally ill people really disabled though?” which is what “does c-punk include mentally ill people?” is functionally code for.

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stolligaseptember · 2 years ago

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#chanting: do it! Do It! DO IT! #id read the hell out of that (via @swizzlemalarkey)

well. i did ask you to ask, so. here we go i guess;

remember that post that was like "every character in mdzs lives in wildly different genres"??? yeah well this is kind of a continuation of that, because while i still stand by my previous essay that the romance aspects of this story is just an adaptation of pride and prejudice, wei wuxian and jiang cheng's relationship is indeed just the fantasy china version of the prince of egypt. and here are 2000 words on that;

(also, disclaimer, i'm an atheist, and this is just a media analysis of the dreamworks movie and not of, like, the actual religious story, please don't hang me.)

okay so i think we need to get this out of the way right away; i love jiang cheng. i love jiang cheng so much. he's my most favorite poor little meow meow. but his canon self is also an awful bastard man that doesn't deserve to share a single speck of his brother's post-canon happiness (unless he goes through so much grovelling and repentance). but he's also a justified baby sibling and did nothing wrong ever in his entire life. and those two statements can and do coexist, and if you can't live with that mindset you probably shouldn't be reading this.

because, yes, he's rameses in this. as in, you know, irrevocably the villain of the story. a villain who was really just a traumatized boy who misses his brother and wishes that things could just go back to the way they were during his happy childhood, but the villain nonetheless.

you can't deal with that? then please stop reading, because i'm not here to discuss this.

because yeah!!!! wei wuxian and jiang cheng as moses and rameses.

because i kid you not, the only thing that went through my head as i watched the chariot race during my rewatch yesterday was "twin prides behavior".

because, honestly. adopted brother who is mischievous and reckless and always drags his considerably more stuck-up brother into shenanigans, but who also loves and supports him unconditionally, and who would do and give almost everything to see him happy and successful? the dutiful biological son who is weighed down by the responsibility and expectations placed on his too young shoulders but who nonetheless always finds it in himself to loosen up in the company of his beloved brother and to be just young and carefree every once in a while, but always getting the worst brunt of the backlash of said carelessness, even if his brother always tries to shield him from it?

they're the exact same characters, i swear to god.

and then how their character arcs develop; jiang cheng growing fastidious in upholding the jiang legacy and traditions, while wei wuxian grows more open to question everything around them for the improvement of everyone, not just themselves.

jiang cheng, who just wants to honor the memory of his parents and to continue the legacy they had built, and who eventually sees wei wuxian as a threat to that very ambition, and who finally grows to resent him because of it. but who also still just loves his brother so very dearly and just wants him to come home again.

because while neither rameses nor jiang cheng's childhoods were perfect, their adulthood gets considerably worse, and they both hold onto those happy childhood memories with a corrosive desperation. they both want everything to go back to the way things were back then, and they're both willingly blind to the fact that everything around them has changed and that that's no longer possible.

they're both such miserable men in the height of their success that they both look back at their childhoods with rose tinted glasses.

i would say that seti and tuya are considerably better parents than jiang fengmian and yu xiyuan, but the building blocks of a the toxic relationships and the trauma that they instilled in their sons are still there. like, moses has a considerably better childhood environment than wei wuxian ever had; he's loved by both of his adopted parents and he doesn't have to suffer any abuse at their hands. but the way seti and tuya raise their two sons are still very similar to how wei wuxian and jiang cheng grow up.

rameses and jiang cheng are held to much higher standards than their brothers, which is to be somewhat expected, seeing how they're the heirs to their realms. but the discrepancy is extreme.

we never get to see seti or jiang fengmian give their biological sons any sort of positive reinforcements, we only ever just see them patronizing them and criticizing all of their faults and flaws, the fact that they don't truly understand the heritage they are meant to bear. and almost exactly in the same breath they coddle their adoptive sons instead, not holding them responsible to anything.

and not getting any positive reinforcements from their fathers, it falls upon their brothers to build rameses' and jiang cheng's self esteem and sense of self up. a task their brothers are more than happy to take upon themselves with gusto, but which also leaves their self worth brittle and easy to topple as soon as said brother is out of earshot.

and which also means that when the one person who has always said that you're worthy and meant to reign suddenly turns around to question that very reigning, it's very easy to very suddenly turn into a self destruction spiral.

because jiang cheng and rameses always expected their brothers to always be right beside them. they were their emotional support brothers who literally held them together at the seams, and then they both just left.

and when they returned it was to question the foundation of their brothers' very existence.

like, the jiangs never held as much power over the wens as rameses held over the hebrews, but the wens were very much antagonists to the jiangs very existence in jiang cheng's eyes, and wei wuxian abandoning him to defend the wens instead must have stung just as much, if not worse, to jiang cheng as moses suddenly returning and demanding rameses to set the hebrews free.

now, this is where things get a little muddled. because while the prince of egypt, a 100 minute animated pg movie, is so very neat and linear. and mdzs is. so very not.

it's not possible to draw neat parallel lines between the plots, but here is an attempt:

moses and rameses have a very clean separation before they're reunited however many years later. jiang cheng and wei wuxian, because they're jiang cheng and wei wuxian, are of course so much messier.

and while they're separated the first time during wei wuxian's first three month stint in the burial mounds, i would say that the first real separation is the burial mounds era. or rather, it's the betrayal, that is the stab in the back, that is moses returning from his years in midian to reclaim his identity as a hebrew and demand the hebrew's freedom.

because moses' years in midian is actually the thirteen years that wei wuxian was dead, but it's also a part of his post-resurrection arc when he finally found peace and happiness with lan wangji, and i said that it got messy.

anyways.

when wei wuxian first takes the wens' side instead of jiang cheng's, and moses demands the hebrew's freedom from rameses' reign of terror, it's a spit in the face of everything that jiang cheng and rameses has been trying to build and establish.

and the reason why i decided to put my foot down so firmly on jiang cheng being rameses is because while i was doing my research before sitting down to write this is i saw that some people, while drawing comparisons from the prince of egypt, pointed out jiang cheng as aaron and jiang yanli as miriam. and i just???? what the fuck???????? what are y'all people on. aaron and miriam are obviously wen ning and wen qing.

they're the spokesperson for the destitute whose connection is the first step for their savior throwing his entire life of comfort and familiarity away in order to save them. the pair of siblings that take him in as their own after he's both abandoned and been abandoned by his brother. the wens are the hebrews. that's a VERY neat parallel.

now, moses succeeded in his mission of keeping the hebrews safe, while wei wuxian did very much not, but then again, mdzs is a very different story, so. we'll skip over that tiny little detail.

"but september," some of y'all may be thinking, "the yunmeng siblinghood isn't just jiang cheng and wei wuxian, what about jiang yanli then?"

i'm so glad you asked!!!!!!

because her role is the role of rameses's son.

now that may be confusing to some of you, because there's a huge difference between the familial relationships between a sister and a son, but hear me out.

she's the death that finally pushes jiang cheng over the brink, that finally wedges the chasm between him and wei wuxian into a distance that they are no longer able to cross and which finally drowns jiang cheng in his own pain and grief and resentment to the point where he's no longer able to resurface. it's the death of the family and the history and the legacy that jiang cheng has been trying to hold together by the skin of his teeth, and he holds we wuxian responsible for just ripping it all away from him.

it's the death that both jiang cheng and rameses can no longer come back from, and it's the point where all of their love and adoration and longing for their brothers finally turn into pure, unbridled resentment.

for like 5 seconds, and then they're back to both hating and loving and missing and resenting and grieving and raging over their brothers all over again. they're absolute garbage fires the both of them. i love it.

and yes, that means that the massacre at nightless city is also the last plague. i did say it got messy.

and it's in the way that after all of that, both moses and wei wuxian are both able to cut the cord clean, to finally say a proper goodbye and wish their brothers nothing but the best, but far away from where they've found and grown their own happiness and leave their love and shared memories, but also the pain and the suffering, in the past, while rameses and jiang cheng can never let go of their grief and resentment and love and memories of happier days, and keep hanging on to that last thread with a helpless desperation.

because while the last plague is the massacre at nightless city, the crossing of the red sea is also somehow the fallout of the guanyin temple???? are any of you following this at this point?????

anyways.

both rameses and jiang cheng grew up endlessly loving but also holding a kernel of resentment for their carefree brothers who stood by their sides through thick and thin, until suddenly their own consciousness forced them to step away, and that kernel of resentment eventually grew to overtake that endless love, but never entirely. and while rameses and jiang cheng both did their best at trying to completely ruin their brothers, none of them succeeded, and they're both left as broken husks of men while their brothers finally found their own happiness, even if it was after their own endless share of grief and hardships.

it's the exact same narrative. they're the same stories.

and while mdzs obviously have a much richer cast of characters and a more convoluted story, there are some more minor parallels that i want to touch upon. (xichen as jethro in my heart.) because while lan wangji was never presented as wei wuxian's sex slave even though i'm certain a whole lot of you have already had a lot of fun with that au, he is a paragon of morality, always standing up for what is right and just, and once he falls in love with him, he is the one to unflinchingly stand by wei wuxian's side throughout all of his hardships.

and as i said in my own tags already; the juniors are just tzipporah's sisters cheering them on from the sidelines. wei wuxian gets resurrected and immediately saves the lan juniors from nie mingjue's dismembered arm; moses barely survives a sand storm and immediately saves tzipporah's sisters from the sheep thieves. and then they're both immediately adopted by a bunch of middle schoolers. love that for them.

...............................so anyway, the yunmeng brothers are just the xianxia version of moses and rameses

#i wrote this in one sitting while also watching tour de ski and having period cramps so. i'm not saying it'll make sense.#and i'm sure that i've forgotten some aspect or another that i initially thought of but!!!!!!!!#y'all are always welcome to ask for clarifications or explanations though #god what do i even tag this as #fantasy china tpoe #that'll do i guess #mdzs #swizzlemalarkey

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cowboylikedean · 2 years ago

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"leave the gaylor fandom cause the rest of the fandom is healthier happier and less homophobic is all i was saying" SO TRUE!!!! i was a kaylor until karlie got pregnant and i was involved in the gaylor fandom until recently and it literally SHOOK ME how different this fandom is to what the gaylors told me it was. like it really is like a cult. i was told that everyone outside the gaylor fandom was evil and homophobic, but the homophobia is coming from inside the house

THE HOMOPHOBIA IS COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE kjalkdsjfkla that's amazing

but yeah no it really is like that. like, obviously there are homophobic fuckwads everywhere, but the vast majority of this fandom is not gonna harass a random tumblr user who isn't a gaylor for posting about queer readings of taylor's songs. the pleas that gay fans seeing themselves in taylor's music doesn't make them creepy and gross or kaylors has 100% always been a gaylor dogwhistle.... because like....... we all see ourselves in taylor's music!

the way the gaylors speak about queer/gay fans like we're ALL on board with them, too, is really weird and creepy and i'm gonna say it..... HOMOPHOBIC! i change the pronouns when I sing ciwyw because my baby IS walking with HER head down and I am the one SHE is walking to! SHE built a fire to keep me warm!!!!!!! i have posted about this multiple times, not a single person has ever said something nasty to me.

i have written multiple posts about dwoht and how it's so QUEER, same with dress... queer in a way that straights cannot really understand. queer in a way that taylor, as a cishet woman, should not be able to achieve... and i have never gotten hate.

i've written about how i think james is a boy, but also that inez had a thing for betty and fleshing out the queer in The Trio there... and again, no hate.

no one is actually out here attacking random people for queer analysis of taylor's music. they're telling you that you shouldn't find autobiographical analysis of taylor's music as a threat or see her as a liar because you can read her work differently than how she indented it or what she wrote it about. and the gaylors twist that and spin it and say that it's hate about queer analysis, but it isn't. which is why that person's post i originally responded to was about them placing autobiographical discussions and queer analysis as a mutually exclusive dichotomy and why they got so upset when I pointed out you can do both and that someone discussing autobiographical implications of taylor's music shouldn't be and isn't a threat to someone discussing queer analysis. it's why in the vaguepost i responded to earlier, they misrepresenting my statements that these things can coexist with "yeah but autobiographical readings are real, you have to acknowledge them." and then in their vaguepost about me after they blocked me, they misrepresented the conversation as being about me defending them getting homophobic hate.

it's sad really

#and yeah it is a cult #and that's a WHOLE conversation #gaylories

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chimmyrockbison · 4 years ago

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MASTERLIST Updated 03/20/2021

COMPLETED AO3 FICS [Kim Taehyung/Park Jimin]

1. The Sound of Your Heart

Summary: There was something so easy about it, it was almost scary. Taehyung didn’t want to feel this way, didn’t want to feel this overwhelming fondness; but not unlike his head, his heart was hard to persuade once it had decided a path. And Taehyung was scared that it had decided on the mute new boy with pretty features and a warm smile.

Words: 144,014

2. All the King's Men

Summary: Castle servants Jimin and Taehyung find themselves involved in a game with the Crown Prince.

Words: 52,531

3. golden haze

Summary: Taehyung watches Jimin’s mouth twist into a pout, forming the word ‘fucking’ with his thick lips before he’s whipping out his translation device again. Taehyung doesn’t have time to stop him when various pornographic images pop up on his holographic screen, Jimin’s eyes widening with intrigue, his mouth falling open at the suggestive images in front of him.

(or: lonely college student taehyung harbors an alien fugitive in his apartment. nothing goes as planned.)

Words: 34,850

4. Drag'on Together (Love Is Its Own Magic)

Summary: “I swear to God, Taehyung if you stop to pick up one more rock because you think it might be some sort of rare stone, I’m leaving you here,” Jimin huffs as he tries to sound intimidating.

“Jiminnie, we both know you wouldn’t survive a minute without me, so stop with the empty threats, okay?” Taehyung replies, happily ignoring his dark-haired friend.

Jimin would argue, he would, if it wasn’t for the fact that Taehyung was right.

The time Taehyung and Jimin finds a blue rock and it turns out to be so much more.

Words: 30,554

5. even the weariest river

Summary: It's moments like this that make Taehyung panic. The open derision on each courtier's face, the scorn of his brother as he turns from his prey. The slit of Park Jimin's eyes, just barely open and dark and hateful, as Taehyung swallows and squares his shoulders and says—

"I want to claim him."

The tides of war change, and sweep Taehyung and Jimin along with them.

Words: 152,979

6. i fell in love with the pizza delivery guy (and then i blew him in the bathroom)

Summary: Send your best delivery guy. Preferably cute, preferably packing.

“You're the one who ordered me,” Taehyung says. Not exactly a question; more of a statement.

“Well, I ordered pizza; you just happen to be a delightful bonus,” Jimin clarifies, lips drawn up in a smirk that sets Taehuyung’s blood on fire in a most delectable way. “Although, had I known a pretty face like yours was working there...maybe I would have been more specific with my instructions. At least I know for next time.”

(or, Jimin orders pizza and a little something extra, and Taehyung delivers without really knowing what he's signing up for)

Words: 18,438

7. Grand Jeté

Summary: Refusing to spend another night alone, Taehyung surprises his perfectionist of a boyfriend Jimin at his dance studio with the intent of dragging him home. But their pent-up emotions from spending time apart has the visit ending with a lot of kissing and a little experimenting.

Words: 8,200

8. Already Midnight

Summary: On New Year's Eve, Taehyung is drunk. So drunk that he doesn't recognize Jimin as his boyfriend. When Jimin kisses him at midnight, Taehyung threatens to call his man- aka Jimin.

Words: 3,951

9. Worth The Risk

Summary: The rules are simple: no kissing on the lips, no petnames, no cuddling after sex, no sleepovers, no labels, and no catching feelings.

It should be simple. In fact, it would be simple, if it weren’t for one tiny thing...Taehyung is pretty sure he’s in love with Jimin. And that’s absolutely against the rules.

Words: 23,645

10. Common Ground

Summary: Taehyung is rich, a little bit bratty, a lot a bit spoiled, and failing calculus. Jimin works full time, tutors, and is a straight-A student. There's a rulebook somewhere that states very clearly that people like Jimin should never associate with people like Taehyung. But rules are meant to be broken. And opposites always, always attract.

Words: 44,136

11. This is not a dream

Summary: He would think they were ships in the night if not for the fact that every night, Jimin lays his head in Taehyung’s lap and Taehyung runs fingers without nerve endings through his hair. If they didn't have this false, teasing closeness long enough to learn every detail of each other's lives, long enough that Jimin is the person Taehyung spends the most time with by a mile.

(Jimin leaves. Two months later, he falls in love with Taehyung.)

Words: 12,370

12. Shooting Stars and Silver Moons

Summary: Yoongi and Jimin make a bet, Taehyung makes bad decisions.

(Or: "I'm kind of pissed you didn't choose me to fake date, I'm your best friend")

Words: 20,206

13. the whole world is blue

Summary: Taehyung is not going to confess. That kind of thing never ends well. The movies are wrong. It doesn't always turn out to be mutual. Real life isn't so romantic like that.

Words: 10,829

14. Swipe Right

Summary: As a best friend, Jimin will do anything for Taehyung. This includes being his fake boyfriend to ward off the unwanted attention Taehyung is receiving after using a dating app and agreeing to meet someone.

Words: 26,085

15. Define Me in Terms of You

Summary: This is either Taehyung's greatest idea, or his worst.

“So, let me get this straight. You want me to teach you how to play guitar, join a fake band and enter a competition just so that you can impress a guy you like?"

Words: 9,808

16. i just adore you asking for more

Summary: Taehyung is a successful model looking for a discreet release. Jimin is a professional dom who won’t judge his browsing history.

Words: 90,201

17. Sirius

Summary: "Dude, our entire relationship could be an Ed Sheeran album."

Words: 16,955

18. it's your heart i wanna live (& sleep) in

Summary: The first time Jimin sleeps over at Taehyung's, it's an emergency. The other times after? That's a different story.

Words: 22,658

19. kissing up on fences (and up on walls, i don't want to fall)

Summary: They’ve always been close, Taehyung and Jimin. Where one went, it would be rare to see them without the other. This is a fact Namjoon knows better than most, having coexisted with them in close quarters for such a long time.

Namjoon had not, however, for all his proclaimed wisdom and prudence, had the foresight to see that they’d become this close.

(or: the five times the other members thought they were dating, and the one time jimin starts to wonder if they really are)

Words: 8,738

20. The Usual

Summary: Alternatively titled: The Regular

Jimin will date anyone, except for boys who serve coffee.

Words: 27,935

21. i'm so sorry but it's fake love (tbh, not really)

Summary: when chaebol/commitment anti-fan park jimin learns he's being married off, he does the smartest thing in the world: hire a fake boyfriend he found on the internet (aka Craigslist's personal ads)

all he needs is just three months with said fake boyfriend to convince his parents to leave him alone. after that, he'll get back to his regular programming.

except, not really.

Words: 209,565

22. Gravity//Oxygen

Summary: He already lost his parents.

He'll be damned if he loses Jimin's smile too.

We stay together.

Always.

Taehyung is out for revenge. And he'll do anything to get it.

Words: 180,321

23. A Screenshot of Youth

Summary: There’s a sharp intake of breath, Taehyung’s grip tightening over Jimin’s with a gentle squeeze. “Jimin,” his voice is serious, and Jimin watches him, strangely endeared. “Let’s be friends.”

And it’s like this, that they begin as friends in the heat of a sweltering summer, twelve years old and too young to think much of it, hands twined together under the blanket of a setting sun.

(In which Jimin and Taehyung grow up together.)

Words: 18,496

24. i'll take the desert, you take the coast

Summary: “Everyone I know is a candlestick nearing its demise. They’re afraid of bringing meaning into their lives, of cultivating that glow. But you, prince Park Jimin, you are different. You glow with the passion of more than a thousand suns.”

Words: 30,973

25. just to get a taste

Summary: The one where Jeongguk dares Jimin and Taehyung to kiss and it unravels a lot of feelings. But mostly more kisses.

Or the one where Jimin's heart is stupid and Jimin's best friend is actually irresistible. Who'd've thunk, huh?

Words: 24,375

26. tell them it's the end

Summary: Five months after Taehyung suddenly walked out on him, Jimin finds out that Taehyung has yet to inform his family, who absolutely loved Jimin, about their split.

Jimin tries to swallow his feelings as he once again “dates” Taehyung.

Words: 13,802

27. stay with you

Summary: Taehyung wondered why he always see this blonde man, getting wasted every night. Its such a shame seeing his pretty face wasting every single night of his life in this bar.

Until he saw his eyes, and he understood why.

(Or Jimin is broken and he wanted his happiness back.)

Words: 12,875

28. ring the changes

Summary: That's the nature of one-sided confessions. Things change.

Words: 45,248

29. summer, winter, spring (i'm falling for you)

Summary: The school starts to take notice of Jimin.

Taehyung has always noticed.

Words: 41,786

30. Make Me-al

Summary: In which Jimin starts to work at Jin's restaurant and there he meets Taehyung, the new rookie waiter that kinda gets him off his nerves (the feeling is mutual). Yet, the tension between them is hotter than the ovens from the kitchen...

Words: 26,886

31. such stuff as dreams are made on

Summary: "sir no one, may i have this dance?"

or: kim taehyung, a kitchen boy, sneaks into a royal masquerade. park jimin is the prince he never expected.

Words: 38,753

#ao3fic #bangtan #bts #bts fic #jimin #taehyung #vmin #vmin fic #vmin au

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