#betrayal in politics

[alwaysbewoke]

and i don't feel a lick of sorry for this dude smfh.

[silv-paru]

WE DID IT WE FUCKING DID IT

[mollysunder]

For once I actually went through the Arcane AMA and found those quotes about Silco's motivation. It's kind of wild to see it in full context.

First, I didn't even know the "dirty little thing" insecurity was an agreed upon perspective, I just thought it was one writer's opinion but no, Christian Linke (Praeco) let us know that was Silco's thing. Ok. I can see how that can tie in to how Silco and Jinx connected, personal insecurities from a hard life.

But then Amanda Overton (leeloo104) goes into detail.

I already know the creative team said they don't think political struggle is "relatable" (yikes), but I've never seen this extra tidbit before!

What do you mean this all so Vander will respect Silco again?!!??!? First of all I could really go in about how Arcane's team seem incapable of having any character fully articulate an actual in-depth explanation about on their grievances with the status quo and what changes should be applied that isn't somehow about familial validation. *looks at Jinx*

Instead, we need unpack how this motivation is at best, very weird, or flat out doesn't make sense. The quote makes it sound like Zaun was fully Silco's idea to win back Vander's love and respect, but Silco said a free Zaun was their shared dream. And regaining Vander's respect seems like a moot point when Silco killed Vander.

Unless Silco knows Vander isn't dead, and that Singed's been slowly turning Vander into Warwick. But then why does he talk to the Vander statue like Vander is dead? I don't doubt Silco wouldn't visit Warwick even in Warwick's confused state. Either way, the Vander that Silco wanted to receive validation from doesn't exist anymore.

I get that they probably wanted to connect Silco's motivation to Jinx's obsession with Vi, but that can be problematic too! It just ends up where Silco and Jinx are written in a way where their search for emotional validation takes precedence over any attempt for them to communicate a coherent and detailed observation on the surrounding politics of their environment.

It would be one thing if they were minor characters, or this was just related to Jinx because she's the youngest in the cast and her story is about understanding who she is. But it's both of them, Silco's at least in his forties, and they're a part of the main cast. On top of that, I'd say their the two most politically influential Zaunites in the cast, and we know NOTHING about what they stand for, what they think the future should look like. Nothing, just vibes.

[essektheylyss]

The tragedy of Bor'dor is that he could've been deradicalized, and wasn't. And not only that he wasn't, but that there wasn't time for it. In isolation, his death could've been avoided, with time, but that isn't something that the Hells have right now. They have been well-outfitted, have many allies across the world fighting on their side, and have made enough of an impact to buy them a few weeks, but even that came at a great cost, given the loss of life we've seen in Uthodurn and here with Hevestro's circle.

And there are so, so many individuals among the Ruby Vanguard who are probably just like Bor'dor, who could be talked down from the ledge they've been egged upon by Ludinus's manipulations. We know this, actually, because the Nein did that for Essek, with, frankly, very minimal actual ideology—they did it by being nice and acting as someone else who listened.

But it's years too late for that, because there is now an army of those individuals, and they cannot be taken in isolation. They have passively caused significant loss of life across the planet by altering this solstice, and encouraging more through their ideological shoving, as in Hearthdell. There's no time because the war is already well underway—only the Hells have arrived in the eleventh hour. So the Hells can pity and mourn him, but Orym's assessment was right—they're at war, and the nature of this war is that it must be fought and won in order to even think about the future and rehabilitation.

The tragedy is that Bor'dor could've lived if there was time, but that time is already long gone.

[calisources]

𝐑𝐎𝐘𝐀𝐋 𝐒𝐂𝐇𝐄𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐆, 𝐁𝐄𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐘𝐀𝐋, 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐁𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐊 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐑𝐓𝐋𝐘 𝐃𝐄𝐒𝐈𝐑𝐄𝐒.

All sentences on this meme have been taking from different media and sources. They all touch on the topics of romance, difficult and forbidden love, mostly setting in the political schemes of war and peace and royal court. Change names, locations and nouns and you see fit. Some lines might have foul language.

Sometimes we hurt the ones we love, but hurting ourselves to avoid it doesn’t make it better.

Could someone treat you badly and still love you? 

Even so, in the midst of this complicated love, there is a holy union.

Love is complicated. It’s sticky. It’s bliss and it’s a mix of emotions. It’s not easy.

I hated him now because I has loved him then.

 I'm not like you. I can't afford to be reckless.

When have I ever, since the first instant I touched you, pretended to be anything less than in love with you?

Are you so fucking self-absorbed as to think this is about you and whether or not I love you, rather than the fact I'm an heir to the fucking throne? 

You at least have the option to not choose a public life eventually, but I will live and die in these palaces and in this family.

She wears a crown that never should’ve been hers.

Your wish is my command, my queen.

You can always leave my service.

Don’t you see, Diana? If I did that, I’d break not one but two hearts. For I know you love me, though you haven’t said it yet.

You do know me. I love you so much, it sometimes terrifies me.

You are going to regret that, Your Magical Regalness.

Just because I am  a prince doesn’t make my life a fairy tale.

So kiss the others for all I care, but don’t hold back with me.

You are enough to drive a saint to madness or a king to his knees.

He didn't marry you to become king. He became king because he wanted to marry you.

I know I have but the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king.

 I believe we are what we make ourselves, and as such, you, Crown Princess, are nothing.

You, what are you? The brat of lucky parents who were related to a childless king.

Rule with the heart of a servant. Serve with the heart of a king.

There’s a fine line between gossip and history, when one is talking about kings.

You can't treat royalty like people with normal perverted desires.

We kings do develop a certain ability to recognize objects under our noses.

...alone is such a nebulous state when one is queen.

I respect you as my king, and I respect you as my father, but I do not respect you as a man.

You're the most important person I've ever met.  And I should have never met you at all.

Desires are what can most easily ruin us, lovely.

I find that happiness can always be recollected in tranquillity, Ma’am.

It's almost impossible for those who have had an intimate relationship to return to a formal one.

I question if within you is any magic.

You’re my princess, right? You were always going to be my princess, no matter what you were born.

The king is a saint and cannot rule, and his son is a devil and should not.

For kings, the world is extremely simplified: All men are subjects.

A king deserves reverence when being addressed.

Yes, she had abused her title and station before, but for minor stuff, not to steal a warship.

You are a king worthy of their allegiance . . . with a queen full of fire and promise.

When God calls you into His Kingdom, your way of life will reflect royalty if you serve Him with loyalty.

My royal status is both a shield that protects me and a sword that impales my heart.

You know, for a pampered princess, you have a certain gift for violence.

I have to be seen to be believed.

Kings needn’t raise their voices to be heard.

That is your very own myth. The idea that how you are born or the name you are given dictate the sort of person you really are.

I know that names have power. That is why I cannot let her forget hers. 

You’ll have to face it, Princess. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but soon enough. And you can’t be this scared when the time comes.

A bad king revels in his importance. A good one hates his office. 

Crowns belong to those that serve.

She was their witch queen, and they adored her.

Beatrice is going to be queen someday.

Kings are only kings because one ancestor was quicker than another to place a crown on his own head.

Queen, do not allow a commoner to dethrone you. Own that throne. You are royalty.

A throne won in blood will soon be drenched in it.

My mother once told me that everything is fuelled by either money or sex, because both lead to power.

Even when she's dethroned by hardship, she still wears the sun as a crown.

She holds a nation’s fate within her shaking hands. She wears a crown that never should’ve been hers.

My reign has been anything but traditional. Let’s not start now, shall we?

Oh honey, someday a real man is going to make you see stars and you won't even be looking at the sky.

Every girl thinks about growing up in a palace. Few ever ponder living in a cage.

Climb up the family tree of any of them high enough and you’ll find a commoner who dared to take a chance.

Am I forbidden to do what all may do?

My arrival saved the kingdom, while his only reiterated that his blood would fill the throne one day.

Slow down there, princess. How do you know what kind of first impression you gave me?

So none of the young men we encountered during our season gave you hot pants for them?

If stubborness were all that was needed to be a good queen, I'd rule the world.

I’d decided that I was going to stop dressing like a princess and start dressing like a queen.

Don’t touch me. Don’t tell me how beautiful my eyes are, how soft my hair is, how you love to hear my voice. Don’t. Don’t pretend you are falling in love with me. 

I know you are lying, and every word you say hurts even more. 

Before the wedding, and the bedding, when I will have to take you as my lord and husband?

I may not be a king or a queen, but I'll be damned if I'm not treated like royalty.

He is fragile, like a prince of ice, of glass.

It is natural that men are going to gather round me, hoping for a smile.

Men only treat women like princesses when they want to use them like prostitutes.

You can smile when your heart is breaking because you're a woman.

I can't sleep, I can't eat, I can't do anything but think about him.

Anyone can attract a man. The trick is to keep him.

To save my son, I would plot with the devil himself.

Only fools wait when their enemies are coming, to see if they may prove to be friends.

When a man wants a mystery, it is generally better to leave him mystified. Nobody loves a clever woman.

I wanted the heat and the sweat and the passion of a man that I could love and trust.

I am a fool to own it, but I am in a fever for your touch.

And you are the sort of mistress a man doesn't bother to marry. Sons or no sons.

[justaz]

semi-dark king merlin au, someone from ealdor tells king cenred about merlin and he is captured and held as a slave in essetir. since merlin despises captivity and servitude, he’d rather be dead and free than alive and in chains so he acts out and pisses people (especially the king) off so they’ll think him too much trouble and kill him. at first they stick to beatings until merlin manages to get his chains around a few necks and now has a body count so they kill him…..only he wakes back up a few hours later and king cenred is Intrigued and keeps him close. merlin keeps acting out but no matter how many times they kill him, he won’t stay dead. merlin has this moment after waking up perfectly fine after his twenty seventh death where he is hopeless and believes there to be no escape, not even thru death. a few other sorcerers in chains come and help him clean up and give him a lil peptalk, realizing him to be emrys, and then they revolt and take over the kingdom and crown merlin as king and now uther is like “wtf” bc his neighboring kingdom who was kinda sorta on his wavelength about sorcery, though uther did not approve of keeping them alive, is now a kingdom ruled by magic. he goes to war with them but with magic running free and fucking emrys on the throne, they don’t make a lot of headway. anyways merthur meet on the battlefield, enemies to lovers, you get it

[fandom-space-princess]

there is a meta post. brewing. somewhere in the back of my head. about the almost comically bad, one-dimensional-to-the-point of parody way that the mass effect fandom interprets Ashley. something about how cynicism is only an acceptable personality trait in male characters, how she is consistently punished for her learned defensive posturing by the fandom in a way that e.g. Wrex isn't, and not allowed the same opportunities for growth out of that defensive posturing by the narrative that other characters are e.g. Tali.

[gabichanwrites]

Can you imagine how much worse the Thunder Saga would be if Polites was still in it.

[sashathegreyhound]

"What Gordon had gone through was immense hurt. I mean at first he was disbelieving, and then almost inconsolable"

How does one justify a betrayal? Do you think decades later you could stare at a camera and talk about how heartbroken your ex best friend closest ally was when you helped his greatest counterpart, the person he had thought of as his greatest supporter (and why wasn't that you?), stab him in the back and steal his lifelong goal out from under him, and not regret it?

Could you convince yourself that it was necessary for the good of the party? Could you convince yourself that that made it worthwhile?

And now I will make the necessary connections to Julius Caesar yet again (hold out no hope for consistency in character assignations between posts, they're all Caesar at some point, trust me)

"If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of Caesar’s, to him I say that Brutus’s love to Caesar was no less than his. If then that friend demands why Brutus rose against Caesar, this is my answer: not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more.”

Caesar trusted Brutus completely, he was his greatest helper and closest friend. Their relationship was built on such love and trust that his support was never questioned. Cassius won Brutus on warnings of danger and promises of prosperity for the city-state. Brutus betrayed Caesar because he thought it would be better for Rome.

"Et tu Brute?"

It is strange then that even in the upholding of that betrayal you cannot help but look to him. Cassius may have won Brutus but the betrayal was Brutus' to enact and Caesar's to experience. Cassius may feel the fire of his actions for the rest of his life but he will not feel the hints of reconciliation, for that honour rests only in the one whose betrayal was so dumbfounding in the first place. It was not the counterpart who the world might have suspected to take that step, but the dearest friend who silently and tragically supported him that drove that final dagger home.

"I rather tell thee what is to be feared than what I fear, for always I am Caesar, come on my right hand, for this ear is deaf and tell me truly what thou thinkest of him”

He will live in constant fear of Cassius, always suspecting a betrayal or a fight or a coup where there is none. But will he ever trust you Brutus again?

Mystifyingly, yes.

[yallemagne]

Every time I see someone say that Remy was a terrible man whore in TAS and so he has no right to feel hurt when Rogue nearly leaves him in '97 I'm like... when? With whom?

Like?? There was that one time that he almost got married, but he was under duress. Not only was Bella Donna threatening to kill his brother, she put some control ring on him. That's an abusive situation! The only other case I think you could argue (and you would be wrong to) is that one time? On Asteroid M? When Rogue came in to save Gambit and said "of course you'd be running with another woman!" because... he was literally running down a hall with Amelia because they had teamed up to take down Cortez. Nothing romantic there. Rogue was teasing.

Am I just stupid? Am I just bad at reading flirtation? Because, other than Rogue, he doesn't flirt much with other women. I mean... he and Logan have some homoerotic back-and-forths. Is that it? Is Wolverine the Other Woman?

Okay, I just remembered: he did flirt once with a shopkeeper in the first episode, so I suppose he has had more explicitly flirtatious interactions, and I just didn't note them because they never had plot relevance, but is that any different from Rogue playfully flirting with other men? 'Cuz she does! She flirts a lot, but it's not meant to be taken seriously. Rogue just has a flirtatious personality, as does Remy.

I think a few instances of flirting with other people from a couple who both have flirtatious personalities is NOT on the same level as Rogue considering leaving Remy to be Magneto's queen. I understand why she considered it! I fully understand the motivation behind it! I hold no grudge against her! ...I did cheer when she ultimately decided not to.

Some playful flirting that's not meant to go anywhere isn't the same as straight-up leaving. Which Rogue has done once before! In Love In Vain, the Brood uses her childhood sweetheart to lure her in. She wanted to run away with Cody in that episode! Her reason? She tells Remy when he's trying to take her on a date to cheer her up that even a swamp rat deserves a girl he can kiss.

I'm not saying Rogue nearly leaving twice makes her a bad person. She's had a shitty past, and it's easier to fall in with people from that past than to let herself be happy with a new man who is open and honest (and kinda obnoxious) about how head-over-heels he is for her. The vilification of Rogue by some people in the fandom is really nauseating and clearly motivated by misogyny, but the response to it being "actually Gambit is a terrible two-timing whore, so good riddance" is no better. You're acting the damn same.

And like the same people who think Gambit is a terrible partner to Rogue also say "oh, Rogue and Gambit were NEVER together, so Rogue wasn't "cheating" with Magneto" at varying degrees like pointing out they were never Official (true) to claiming Rogue never reciprocated Gambit's feelings (blatantly false)... then how are you saying Gambit is a cheater?

I just think about this because something that has been a breath of fresh air for me about this ship that they haven't had a lot of infidelity scares? It would be such easy drama to have Remy flirt with someone else and Rogue beat the shit out of him for it, but that never happened in TAS or '97. So, I don't understand why people insist that is their dynamic.

If anyone tries to cite comic instances - leave. That obviously does not apply here, do not be purposely obtuse.

[ghostvibesonly]

JAY GOT HIS MOM TO VOICE ODYSSEUS’S MOM I’M SOBBING

god listening to the underworld hurts so much more after learning that “fun” fact (genuinely it’s so sweet oh my god but i’m using humor to cope)

“i took too long. I ventured too far while you were waiting”

“I’ll always love you”

[lord-squiggletits]

Wrote a scene for PPAU in which Megatron convinces the DJD to accept a peace treaty with the Autobots (that doesn't constitute rebuilding and then stabbing them in the back). And when I was outlining/brainstorming I was like, "okay Megatron is probably going to have to make an example of some DJD member who lashes out and refuses to accept it. There's gonna be a little fucked up cult violence in here"

Except no, that smooth son of a bitch gave the DJD a speech that so effortlessly tied them up in his new peacetime plans that the most opposition he got was a muttered comment by one single member. My man used the brainwashing of nationalism and patriotism to counteract the cult brainwashing. He made a rhetorical appeal so sound that any member of the DJD who tried to argue against the peace treaty would sound like they were opposed to reclaiming Cybertron, their homeland, and ensuring the well-being of their own loyal soldiers. I was like "MEGATRON THERE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE MORE CONFLICT IN THIS SCENE YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO CHOKE-LIFT A BITCH OR AT LEAST RIP OFF TARN'S MASK AS A DRAMATIC GESTURE OR SOMETHING" and the Megatron in my brain went "hahaha no" and charmed the DJD so thoroughly that there wasn't even a single raised voice. Charismatic son of a bitch

[myrddinthewizard]

here’s another writing prompt for you—joe biden x donald trump enemies to secret lovers to betrayal to tentative friendship to lovers where they meet each others parents (kamala and hillary)

i’ll get right on that! everyone feel free to send me more prompts like this! i think this is such a cute and underrated ship that we should all be talking about more!!!!!

[hannahwdraws]

Just a couple of girls from The Free Marches

"I can't believe the girl I taught to weave flowers at the Arlathvhen grew up to be the 'fearsome' Inquisitor."

"I can't believe Varric didn't put two and two together sooner that we might have already known each other."

"Try not to blame him, you're so different from the girl I knew from back then."

"I'm still just a Dalish girl from The Marches"

[ananke-xiii]

Cas saying "I wanted to return [the cassette]" and Dean saying "It's a gift, You keep those" is not just a cute, romantic destiel moment, it's Cas wanting out of his bond with Dean (because he's about to betray him again and hypocritically thinks he can get away with that if he just returns that gift) and Dean telling him "no, you stay where you are, I demand reciprocity". The moment Dean says (and probably repeats although we don't see it) that the cassette is a gift and that he has to keep it he is implicitly requiring reciprocity which Cas won't give back.

more on reciprocity here.