#but there is a good chunk of the population that actually believes that

[alpaca-clouds]

Emmanuel's Motivation and Believes

I know, I know, we all agree on that we hate Emmanuel definitely now. But given that I adore any narratives filled with Catholic Guilt, I cannot help but also kinda love his story, and go into his thinking. Because I think that is interesting. Plus: It gives me a chance to talk about Catholic doctrine, and some more details about how the French Revolution related to the church.

First let me get one thing straight: I actually do not think that Emmanuel was with the other monks on Malta. I laid out in my analysis on Mizrak when season 1 came out, I am assuming that Mizrak and a good chunk of the monks being with Emmanuel came from Jerusalem, then went to Malta, where the Order of St. John had a long, long hold until Napoleon came around, before going to France - partly in an attempt to help stabilize the political situation there and be warriors for the church.

However, given that we know that Emmanuel was in Machecoul for at least 17 years (because he has to have been there to father Maria) it obviously does not check out for him to have come to France only recently when the political situation in France started to destabilize. Hence, I am assuming, that he is definitely associated with the Order of St. John, but probably has not been in Jerusalem, and only shortly in Malta.

But yes, there is going to be the big influence of the French Revolution.

A quick refresher: The French Revolution came to be, because France was in dept because first a war with England, and then their support of the American Revolution. French society was divided into three estates: Nobility, Clergy, and Peasants. Nobility and Clergy made up about 3% of the population, Peasants the rest. But while Nobility and Clergy had most of the money, they were not taxed. And when they tried to pay the dept through more taxes for the peasants, the peasants said: "We don't think so." And they started to push for more taxes for the nobility and the clergy. And when the Revolution started to get going, they also started to be like: "Actually, you know what? The entire clergy thing is stupid. If you wanna be clergy here, you will do it by the rules of the Republic of France. You have to swear an oath to the Republic, also we will do away with the rules of celibacy and bishops and cardinals will now be elected democratically." And of course, when some of the clergy did not want to swear that oath, some found out what it was to be on the lower end of the guillotine.

As I also spoke about before: In the area where Machecoul is located was the last holdout where people were generally against the revolution, due to the nobility and clergy being very close with the peasants. And of course this would lead to the War in the Vandée, that would end in a massacer - though that is definitely ahead of where we are in the timeline right now.

It is very likely that at least Emmanuel is one of the younger sons of a lower noble house, as the higher ranking clergy were usually from noble bloodlines back then. But given he is "just" an abbot he probably is not from the best pedigree. It might also be that he is a noble bastard - those were often put into positions like abbot and such. Aka: A position with some influence, but not too much.

Chances are, he has been raised on the believe that he is better, because God had decreed it at some point. Which means that he believed that anything the Revolution was doing went directly against the will of God and was in fact blasphemy and heresy of the highest order.

Of course, he probably from the very beginning saw himself as a sinner - given that he himself had broken his vows of chastity when he had had Maria with Tera.

And I think that very much is the core of his motivation. His logic will go something like this:

The people of France were going against Gods will and were basically pushing everyone else to do the same, which did not only depower the church and nobility, but also would end with them all in hell.

He - Emmanuel that is - already is headed for hell, because he not only has broken his vows, but also has done so with a heathen (because Tera is not Christian).

Erzsebeth wants to stop the revolution, and he is very convinced that she is full of shit in regards of having the soul of a goddess inside her - after all he does not believe in any god other than THE God with a capital G.

A "demon" comes along and offers him what to him appears as a surefire way to get rid of Erzsebeth, who to him is a heretic as well, and a demon to boot herself (given she is a vampire).

So yes, from his perspective this makes sense. He selflessly sacrifices his own soul to the demon, works with Erzsebeth to oppose the revolution, before dispatching of Erzsebeth himself with the help of the demon.

Which brings me to the scene with Emmanuel in episode 1 of season 2. When he is made to bring Drolta back. Because this scene is so freaking delicious. In this scene - as Drolta comes back - he starts crying and finally breaks down completely. And while definitely the fact that Erzsebeth did before control the moon, already did something to his religious believes (if she isn't a god, how did she do it?). But then Drolta comes back.

Why does he break down on that?

Well, because this proofs that Drolta has a soul. And together with Erzsebeth's display of powers, this completely dismantled his world view. And this is the moment where I will once more note: Yes, people react to their worldview being dismantled with the same response as they would to a physical threat. Humans are really not good with adjusting their worldview.

So, yeah, the fact that Drolta comes back from the dead proofs to him, that indeed, his religious believes are wrong in at least some way or form. And he does not know what to do.

Mind you, I also cannot help but feel like there is at least a bit Claude Frollo that influenced the writing of Emmanuel. I mean: A priest, who dabbles in alchemy and dark magic, while falling in love with a woman from a travelling culture? Sounds a lot like Frollo. (And with that I mean: Someone please do an AMV to Hellfire. Thanks!)

[talesofsonicasura]

Merfolk Headcanons

My take on merfolk from their biology to societies. Expect a good chunk of my works to incorporate these to an extent. Any fandom related ones like for KN8 will be labeled as such. Y'all are free to utilize this if you want. The only thing I ask is to maybe link the page so others can see it for themselves! Let's get started.

Merfolk consists of multiple species than just mermaids and mermen. Sirens, Selkies, Nereids are some examples amongst this diverse species. I can't forget the various subspecies and hybrids that slowly emerge from this tree of evolution.

Merfolk are related to humans through a distant ancestor. These individuals began to steadily adapt traits perfect for aquatic environments. An evolution that soon made them amphibious in nature before truly becoming the mers known today.

Merfolk slowly began to disappear from the eyes of their land locked relatives. Quite a few believe it was due to rising conflict between both races. Whatever the reason, the aquatic species soon faded into legend as they lived in their own underwater communities.

Of course merfolk also had their major conflicts just like humans. Even civil wars before a treaty was put in place to avoid self made extinction. This treaty led to a massive renaissance amongst the species, particularly in the realm of medicine.

Antidotes, antibiotics, vaccines, and any other cure to the ocean's maladies. Multiple species of merfolk were venomous in nature so these cures dropped illness or death from poisoning drastically. Especially since young mers have difficulty controlling their venomous bites and stings.

The latest development in merfolk medicine was actually prosthetics. Whether materials from items humans tossed to the sea or what their natural environment has to offer varied. Even merfolk can suffer grievous injuries so these prosthetics could make living easier.

(Kaiju No. 8) When kaiju began to infest the sea, multiple merfolk inventions were halted and possibly lost. The schematics to prosthetics were one such thing. Stone slabs depicting these life saving aids often found themselves in places like auction houses.

Another type of merfolk creation was bath soap, especially bubble bath. These aquatic individuals do love a good bath and multiple bathing places are hidden amongst the sea. Even hot springs which became popular with the elderly or ailing mers.

Merfolk bath products are 100% environment friendly compared to most of their human counterparts. Some even have more potency in certain areas. Merfolk bubble bath create huge bubbles that are able to be entered and played inside. Although caution is advised as they are meant to be played around water since contact with land or a sharp object would pop them.

Like humans, merfolk have planned on how to handle disasters. Especially if it makes the upper part of the ocean too dangerous for them to live. An emergency 'bunker' deep within the sea referred to as the Depths.

Should an event occur that requires this shelter, nearly all merfolk will retreat to the Depths. How long they stay down there varies but there's enough materials and supplies to keep them alive but also content. Not all merfolk retreat to the Depths as a good chunk of pods decide to tough it out.

Whether its stupidity or hubris which drives these rare few are unknown. Though the chances of their situation becoming complicated also arise. Some mers are born with a dormant mutagenic gene.

It slumbers amongst the unaware population unless certain perimeters are met. The main reason being if the environment in question has deemed itself too hostile for the host to survive. It's at the moment where it'll awaken and begin to mutate the mer.

The mutations depend on what is potentially threatening the host's life. Adaptations can be minor like hardening of scales, the ability to camouflage, being able to withstand inhospitable environments, etc. However there are occurrences where the mer becomes monstrous.

(KN8) Due to the threat being kaiju, the mutation merfolk go through is called Pseudo Kaijufication. The hosts in question begin taking on kaiju traits from size, advanced regeneration and even develop unique abilities. All of them share a stinger-like tail which is actually their old body's tail fin rendered useless.

These mutations often come at a cost as they become less merman/mermaid to fit their new kaiju genetics. Kafka lost his ability to take on human form and his enchanting song. In exchange he got a powerful ability in the form of Self Biological Manipulation alongside electrokinesis.*

All merfolk possess the power to take on human form. This requires the individual to dry themselves on land. Inside their body is a gene that is responsible for the transformation via their skin.

Whenever dry, a mer's body will expel the excess moisture creating a thick screen of dry steam as a result. All their animal traits recede into human ones without the needed water sustaining it. Some spontaneous fog banks are the result of Leviathan class merfolk taking human form.

If their outer skin touches water then they revert back. The gene orders their body to draw in water particles within the air at a rapid rate. Moister the area, the faster the reversion is. Some crafty merfolk created tonics that can temporarily nullify this gene for a few hours.

Quite a few members of the species secretly live amongst humans. No one knows how many people have a merfolk lineage but some guess around 22%. A human/mer couple can bear human and mer offspring.

The chances for either varies between individuals. Whether the 'mother' is human or mer doesn't matter at all. A few scholars believe it's because both races are distant relatives thus they share similar genetics.

The animal half of a merfolk usually affects their mannerisms and biology on certain levels. For example, some subspecies are born intersex/hermaphrodite if they're part sea slug or cuttlefish. Terms for offspring, how they are born, and terminology also varies.

Merfolk come in different size classes with the smallest being Mini while the largest is Leviathan. Every subspecies has a chance to be born in any size class despite the nature of their animal halves. Leviathan: 31-50 ft except for some rare cases being even bigger, Large: 19-30 ft, Medium: 10-18 ft, Small: 2-9 ft, Mini: Less than 2 ft.

All merfolk can have offspring with each other no matter the size class. This unique biology is the main reason why they usually travel in pods of varying sizes. Someone will be able to tend to offspring if the parents are indisposed for some reason.

A few merfolk do live solitary lives under different reasons. Sometimes it is their choice since pod life ain't for everyone. Most of the time it is by banishment via majority vote or the leader. The same condition is given to the mer's mate in question.

Sometimes a merfolk will perform a mating bond with their potential partner(s). This is an ancient ritual that links the participants' souls to each other. A connection which allows one to feel how their mate is doing and for one to follow the other(s) after death as a spirit.

When a mating bond is formed, unique markings appear all over the pair's body. The colors and shapes vary between individuals but only other merfolk can see it. It shows that the mated pair are taken but also share little interest in new partners. Mating bonds must be done willingly between both sides in order to work.

If a merfolk has lost something whether due to a mutation or another unnatural event, a mating bond would restore it to some extent. This even includes lost senses, lost ability to take human form, and for species like sirens they regain their unique power. Selkies gain the ability to regain their missing coat once no matter the location.

There is some human technology that can see mating bond markings if they have lenses made from sea glass. Merfolk and human tattooists are sometimes commissioned to make physical tattoos on the marks. The latter being fishermen or trusted individuals by the former.

Some human communities are aware of the merfolk's existence. They often vary but it's usually people who have occupation that results in moderate sea interactions or have mer partners. It ain't uncommon for lovers of the latter to make life changes.

Whether it's a life on sea following their mate's travel routes or even becoming a merfolk themselves. There is a unique potion made from a merfolk's blood that can convert a human into this unique race. Any who do partake in it becomes the blood donor's species and inherits their genetic traits including mutations from the adaptive gene.

Conversion takes one-two weeks to complete depending on the merfolk in question. This is so the human can adapt to the changes at their own pace without something going wrong. It takes extra time if the blood donor has mutated to a certain extent as they do manifest inherit physical traits.

(Kaiju No. 8) If Soshiro takes the potion then it would take almost three weeks to fully transform. He will become a 73 ft Great White Shark Siren in the Leviathan class and part of the Pseudo Kaiju class like Kafka. This includes inheriting his own bone like mask, bioluminescence alongside his husband's abilities such as electrokinesis on a lesser scale.

Merfolk utilize whatever they can find in their current environment. This even includes human made objects like scrap to lost transportation vehicles. It ain't uncommon for them to remove trash from the ocean with the occasional human help.

None of these sea denizens like polluters especially if it's done on purpose. It ain't uncommon for merfolk to toss garbage back at the offenders or dump it into their boats. Sometimes petty Leviathan class mers stealthily toss garbage island patches on large ships such as military vessels to cruise liners.

Merfolk have their own treasured landmarks and sacred sites of sorts. The species' most important plant is actually mangrove trees. It ain't uncommon for mers to hide their eggs amongst the roots of these trees for they serve as nurseries to orphans.

There are ways for humans to prove themselves trustworthy to merfolk. Whether it's through special charms made from dead mangrove bark, having mating bond marks, or being decently fluent in their language. The latter requires help from a mer in order to learn.

Meanwhile dangers like poachers are taken very seriously. The bones and dead flesh of merfolk are the deepest black in the species' eyes so they can immediately recognize items made from fallen kin. Mers will drown or tear apart threats like poachers without any remorse.

Even baiting them into deep enough water by playing dead, wounded, or unaware. These executions are done in small pods of any size class for maximum efficiency. Abandoned vessels on the sea can be attributed to merfolk attacks.

Items made from mers are given proper burials deep beneath the sea beds. There are rare exceptions to this. If a merfolk willingly donates part of themselves for an item's creation, then the donated materials are treated with a special solution that makes it a different color in merfolk eyes.

The main ingredient for this solution must be given willingly or it won't work. Another natural deterrent against potential threats that try to deceive them. (Not the first time it has happened nor will it be the last.)

(Kaiju No. 8) Kafka gifts Soshiro twin katanas made from a tooth and claw as one of his courting gifts. These blades come with the unique ability to slice even through diamond like a hot knife to butter in skilled hands. Something No. 10 learns the hard way.

Merfolk can live for a very long time compared to humans. Their life span varies between species but some individuals have lived even way longer than what's normal for any individual. Dubbed as Ancients, they are a rarity and often have knowledge that was lost to time amongst merfolk.

What do you guys think?

@gigilalaka @noodlesbf-blog @kafkahibinomybeloved @mechazushi @iceclew @renard-dartigue @terra-sketches @margoteve @j4yslayz @scribblermerlin @giantgoblin @omniithe-deer @oxandthorn @driokrine @kaijuice-z @quinowskie @xprincesiex @witchofthesouls @ashiraismyname @writeroffanfiction

[edenfenixblogs]

I think that I’ve realized one of the big reasons that antisemites are so anti-Israel—I mean, aside from it being a state where a lot of Jews are.

Israel is a state that protects Jews. It also does a lot of bad things under the Likud government. And it also harms Jews that get in the way of the Likud government. But none of that matters to antisemites.

Because a state is an institution. And the left has been very clear that it’s all about criticizing institutions.

And in the absence of a governing religious body to criticize, the Israeli state is all the leftist antisemites have to criticize.

They can’t seem to fathom that the leadership of Israel is not in anyway synonymous with a religious institution. They cannot seem to fathom that the Likud government isn’t in any way representative of Jewish people as a whole—and not even of Israelis as a whole! (Once again, Israel is a parliamentary system. It’s about who has the largest proportion of votes, not a majority) and that Jews in Israel as well as non-Jews in Israel have a say in who to vote for and often strongly oppose Likud and Netanyahu.

It’s like a whole chunk of otherwise progressive people have been waiting for a way to criticize all Jews by attacking some institution they think speaks for us.

They cannot fathom that we are literally just a small ethnic group with half of our number in one location and would very much like for us and for them to not be victims of violence. That’s the uniting principle.

They’ve continually demonstrated how little they know and understand about Judaism, Jewish culture, and Jewish history.

I genuinely do not know if they’re aware that there’s no supreme Jewish council or whatever. There’s no Jewish version of the Grand Imam, Grand Ayatollah, Dalai Lama, Celestial Master, or Head/President of the Church.

We don’t even have a main synagogue from which edicts or traditions flow. We did have one. The Wall in Israel was our main institution. But colonizers and invaders destroyed it. And other religions built their institutions on top of it. And the religious governing body of Jews fell apart thousands of years ago.

…so the only thing that holds us together is each other. Rabbis don’t answer to some central authority. We hold traditions together through culture and traditions and connection to our land of origin, like many our even most other indigenous cultures.

But, because there is one (1) place on the entire planet where Jews are a majority of the population and not a minority, suddenly vicious attacks on the character of Jews everywhere are fair game as long as antisemites pretend they are talking about “Israel.” But they aren’t talking about the State of Israel. Because they get mad whenever we tell them to please specify the current government and the Likud party, because they are the ones responsible for carrying out the needless violence.

But they won’t do that. They seem to believe that there is some uniting religious force that exists in the Israeli government. And they seem to think that we are all united by this religious directive of “Zionism.”

That’s the only way any of their criticisms make sense logically. They don’t see themselves as attacking actual humans. They see themselves as attacking institutions. And any Jew who disagrees with them? Well they are just bastards supporting the institution.

But…there is no supreme Jewish institution. It doesn’t exist. It doesn’t exist because they destroyed those institutions.

They’re making themselves feel good by thinking attacking Jews is somehow helping free Palestine. But it’s just attacking Jews.

It’s like a weird continuation of supercessionism. They’re projecting their religious structure onto a religion that is fundamentally incompatible with that structure.

[zethsdumpster]

au where Sora is a nature spirit that Judge tricked and shackled to himself

With her last breath she hid her children from Judge, sending them away but unintentionally locking them where they landed

Sanji ends up in a somewhat populated place

Yonji and Reiju end up close by populated places

And Ichiji and Niji ending up pretty isolated

(Ofc Judge is looking for them)

Sanji is on a beach, the area they can move around isn't small, but Sanji isn't able to reach any food source, fortunately, Zeff ends up there and ends up taking care of him. Sanji doesn't tell him but Zeff isn't stupid, he realizes that 1 - this kid isn't completely human, and 2 - he is locked in place, so he has their house and restaurant built there. Ofc it becomes popular and the nearest city slowly grows its way closer and closer to the area Sanji is sealed in. Zeff is also looking for a way to free Sanji from his curse.

Both Reiju and Yonji end up in borders, able to reach the outskirts of the nearest cities.

Reiju becomes a bit of a local deity, since she's the oldest (hence the one that was able to spend more time with Sora) she has better control/understanding of her powers and is able to make deals and help people (as well as defend herself)

Yonji becomes more of an urban legend, sometimes interacting with people (mostly those who seem to be his age, but sometimes others too, as long as they seem interesting) and using his long reach to steal stuff whenever he wants/needs.

Niji ended up high in a mountain while Ichiji ended up in the deepest parts of a forest, both almost completely isolated, the only reason they didn't go completely feral was because of their mother's blood in their veins. Niji is the one with the least amount of control over his powers so the mountain top is in an almost eternal electric storm, It ends up attracting some other spirits that end up settling in his general area, but Niji doesn't like them very much (they're Kaido and his gang). there’s a small village at the base of the mountain Niji is trapped on and they sincerely believe he controls the weather so they send offerings to him, Niji doesn't learn about them until later but the citizens are sure that the mountain is cursed (cuz of Niji)

Ichiji, when he first gets trapped, loses control and ends up torching a good chunk of the forest early on and has to live with the fact that his permanent new home is a charred wasteland unless he can get himself under control, And then overcompensated and the new grown plants barely let any light pass through But it's fine, Ichiji is his own source of light He's so deep in the forest he's only ever found by people who get lost, at first he tried to keep them there, but there's no way for mortals to survive the way he lives, so they ended up dying which only caused him distress, so he ended up deciding to completely avoid people or sth, he ended up learning how to use his ability to create firefly lights to guide people to their paths the anxiety that consumed him when Ace ends up there and decides to stay with him (he's in hiding, if he leaves he'll be captured and killed)

Ichiji, always shrouded in darkness, people are usually only able to see his bright eyes and whatever lil else his lights illuminate (he's terrifying, but he also guides the innocent back home) Sora's powers mainly had to do with the wind and all her kids also have some minor wind abilities which are also what have allowed them to at least keep each other somewhat updated (i picture it more like the wind telling them random stuff that them actually controlling that) so maybe the wind sometimes tells Ichiji about what the people who end up there have done (since he needs the wind to tell him where he should guide them to) so he decides whether he wants to help them or kill them uwu

Niji doesn't like Kaido and his men, they keep pestering him about joining (submitting to) Kaido. Kaido can't enter Niji's sealed area because the same magic that keeps him in place also keeps overly dangerous beings like Kaido out. But others like Yamato, Ulti and Page 1 can (yes, he does end up at least making out with each one of those three at least once)

In this au the Marines are kind of a "Fae hunting" organization, they "take care" of "dangerous and malicious" spirits, while MADs study them (and experiments on them)

While the revolutionaries rescue and protect all the spirits that actually aren't malicious & dangerous.

Which is how Sabo ends up looking for (and finding) the Long Arm Man, his "legend" has outgrown his small city by a lot and the Marines will arrive at any moment for it, so the Revolutionaries will beat them to it.

This is also the reason Ace ended up on the run and hiding in Ichiji's forest.

His father was an incredibly powerful fire spirit and the Marines found and caught Ace, he was fortunately rescued but it was a close call and he's still very much in danger.

Neither Luffy nor Sabo are spirits, but Luffy is the chosen vessel of the Sun God Nika (something only a few people know about him) and Sabo has a spirit deal with Ace which allows him to use his fire abilities (to no to the same extent or as powerful as Ace specially when they're far away from each other and also lets them be somewhat aware of each other's safety and location)

the town Reiju ended up near by being the one where Mihawk and/or Gecko Moria live so she and Perona can have a childhood sweethearts/friends to lovers and that part of the reason of Perona's obsession with the occult is 1 - the fact that she can see ghosts and 2 - find a way to free Reiju

when Sabo finally learns that this super weird guy is the Long Arm Man he's gonna be like: we have to leave Yonji: lmao, good luck with that

now we have 4 different people trying to free these morons (cuz ofc Kaido wants to drag Niji out of there) 3 of those 4 will definitely end up joining forces

meanwhile, Acechiji is chilling in the dark

there's a problem with freeing them tho

the only reason Judge was unable to find them was because of the same spell that kept them in place

Judge will probably find them rather easy once they're free

Luffy, unintentionally, frees Sanji (cuz being Nika's vessel grants him that kinda power) Sanji and Zeff are super confused but happy and ofc Luffy takes Sanji on his quest for adventure

Ichiji who hasn't seen sunlight in literal years so he needs to keep his eyes covered and Ace helps him move around

I'm thinking that freeing Sanji should also have an effect on the others' seals, like, maybe now Kaido can reach Niji and Judge can find them (even if he can't take them away)

[internetgiraffekid1673]

What the Hell is Wizard101 (and Pirate101)

I'm making this post for the lovely @ellazimmermansblog, who is very sweet and wants to actually have half a clue what's going on in the fandom that I'm in but she's not. And oh sweet cheese and crackers. You asked for it. I tried to leave this in the comments. I really did. This is gonna get long, so feel free to read this in chunks or disregard it or just read it whenever you get the time.

Genre:

Wizard101 is a JRPG or junior-role-playing game that's also an MMO or Massive Multiplayer Online game that was big in the 2010s. In case you don't know what those are:

A JRPG is a game where you basically play as the protagonist of a middle grade fantasy/adventure story, meaning the target audience is usually 7-13. Think Pokemon or Kingdom Hearts.

An MMO is a game where everybody who plays the game is playing at the same time, in the same world. You can always interact with other players and are heavily encouraged to team up and collobarate.

While it is advertised as "free to play," it's only free for like the first hour or so of playtime. You can do the tutorial and like two other areas before you have to fork over some cash for a membership.

Basic Story:

Anyway, the spoiler-free story of Wizard101 is that you are a young Wizard enrolled in Ravenwood School of Magic by Headmaster Ambrose. He found you magically transported from "a strange world that doesn't believe in magic" (read: Earth). He believes you may be "the one we've been searching for." After doing a personality quiz to decide which school of magic you belong to, your enrollment is immediately crashed by Malistaire Drake. He used to be the Professor for the Death School, until his wife fell ill and he went mad with grief and turned evil trying to bring her back.

After beating up your would-be teacher, you learn that he's been unleashing scores of undead onto Wizard City, mind-controlling people, is going after major infrastructure, and is just being a dick in general because he's eeeeeeeeviiiiil. Ambrose turns you loose in the streets to help a number of other student NPCs save the city and do general damage control.

The main story of Arc 1 basically has you trekking after Malistaire like a lunatic, cleaning up his messes and trying to stop him from breaking the world apart while he attempts to ressurect his wife. This is where me and my brother J-Dog are at in our playthrough.

But there are 4 arcs, and the story continues WELL after you mop up the Malistaire problem. It's basically the Young Wizard saving the spiral from major threat after major threat, trekking through quirky worlds willy-nilly, and meeting a massive and entertaining cast of NPCs, all with different motivations and sidequests and problems for you to solve (or cause).

Each world in the spiral is also kind of an analogy for a real life place or a popular fictional story, but you replace all the humans with anthropomorphic animals (I'm really not sure why this game isn't more popular with furries). Marleybone, for example, which is where my brother and I are right now, is analagous to Victorian era England and populated by a bunch of stiff-upper-lipped dogs that nobody likes, mutliple crime rings of cats, and a contingent of Irish foxes that only appear in the less-popular but very good companion game: Pirate101 (I'll get to that).

That's the most basic I can make the gist, but there's still a lot of other basic information that might matter when I talk about it, so I'll put that under a cut!

Magic Basics:

The 7 main schools of magic that you can play as, and what they're general purpose/ability is are as follows:

Storm: Hit things really hard in exchange for a low accuracy rate and lower base HP. Glass cannons basically. This is what I'm playing as.

Fire: Also hitting things, but focuses more on damage-over-time spells that kill your enemies slowly.

Ice: Damage Sponge. They have the highest natural health pool, access to some decent spells early on to reduce damage, and even have a taunt spell that can draw enemy fire onto them (this isn't very useful in practice from what I've heard).

Those are the three elemental schools. The next three are spirit schools.

Life: Healers. What did you expect? They're the only class with the ability to heal other players. They get a high health pool, really good accuracy, and a lot of healing spells, but they're less good at hitting things and dealing damage. This is what J-Dog is playing as.

Myth: Summons. You can summon lots of different minions to help you out. From what I understand, each minion plays slightly differently and you're supposed to build different strategies around what they give you.

Death: Drains. Stealing health from the enemy basically. A lot of their spells will hit the enemy really hard, and then give half of that back to you. Because of the capability to hurt and heal in the same turn, they're the best to solo the game with.

And finally there is a school that lives in between Elemental and Spiritual:

Balance: battlefield control. They have a lot of damage increasers and damage reducers, and have the capability to mess with the powers of any of the other schools.

While each class does have it's unique and specific niche, they do all have the same main function: summon a monster to hit your enemy. All the combat in the game is done in a summoning circle where you take turns summoning monsters to hit each other. Each side can have up to 4 allies at a time (are we sensing a number theme yet).

Each enemy in the game has an assigned school that they belong to. Casting spells from the same school as them does less damage, while spells from the opposite school are stronger. Opposites are as follows:

Life and Death

Fire and Ice

Myth and Storm

Balance is a special snowflake that has no opposite :)

Your ability to cast spells depends on your Mana, which can be restored with blue wisps of magic floating around the world. Your ability to not be dead depends on your health, which can be restored with red health wisps.

Most spells that you cast, especially damaging spells, have a chance to "fizzle" or fail to cast. It's like missing in a pokemon game. This is the bane of every player's existence.

There are also Astral Schools later that do other things, but I ain't got there yet, so it's whatever.

Extracurriculars:

There are a number of other fun things you can do in Wizard101 that don't involve saving the world:

PvP: player versus player combat! Get the shit beaten out of you by people with more time and money! For fun! Beat the shit out of other people and win arena tickets, which can buy you cool prizes like better gear!

Pets: You can have a number of adorable little animal companions that, if you take good care of, will help you in combat! Some of them cast spells on their own, some of them give you extra spells to cast, some of them have passive abilities that increase your strength, and all of them will get more helpful the more you train them. You train them via minigames, like teaching them to dance or having them eat snacks off a stage or FIRING THEM OUT OF CANONS (amongst other questionable activities).

Gardening: Take care of the weirdest assortment of magical plants you've ever seen, in exchange for harvesting them for money and crafting ingredients and treasure cards and stuff. All of them are puns btw. Like. I have laugh-o-dils, despairagus, baby carrots (literal screaming baby carrots in diapers), and dandelions (which have actual lion faces) to name a few.

Fishing: Pull weird magical pun-based fish out of the water and sell them for exorbitant amounts of cash or stick them in your aquarium or something!

Monstrology: Study various creature types by killing them a lot until you become an expert and can either summon them as minions, stick them in your house, or just get EXTRA good at killing them.

Crafting: Use natural ingredients you found across the spiral (reagents) to make better gear yourself!

There's also photomancy, but that's just a glorified screenshot feature and we all know it.

NPCs:

Me and everybody else who plays this game is fucking obsessed with all of the non-player characters in both games. There are so many of them though, and they're so different from each other, that you're better off just asking who's who every time I post about one.

Pirate101:

While the Wizard is off being a tragic chosen one saving the spiral from various world-ending threats, there are other adventures going on underneath their nose! Pirate101 takes place at the same time and in the same universe as Wizard101, but never interacts beyond vague references.

The basic spoiler-free plot of this one is that you are a young orphan who got thrown into prison after crossing the Clockwork Armada, a tyrannical army of steampunk clockwork robots who want to conquer the world and end our God Given Right to steal shiny things (and also suppress free will or something. Idk. I never got that far).

You're broken out of jail by eccentric pirate captain Boochbeard and his monkey first mate Mr. Gandry, drag a fellow captive along with you, beat up one of the high-ranking members of the Armada, and are taken to the pirate safe haven of skull island. You're introduced to it's steward, the successful and retired pirate Captain Avery, who immediately enlists you as his errand boy/girl/goblin thing. You meet one of the first companions of your crew, Bonnie Anne, and together you run some turncoat sharks out of town.

After proving yourself to Avery and getting swindled out of a real ship, you basically spend the rest of the game chasing after untold gold and riches, beating up the Clockwork Armada, and helping out unfortunate souls where you can.

The critical difference between wizard and pirate though: The wizard makes temporary NPC acquaintances and even a few true friends, but they're always left to fight alone with just themselves (and a few other wizards if you're playing the game multiplayer, as intended). Meanwhile, the pirate is collecting ragtag companions for their motley crew like they're pokemon cards. Some of them are looking for adventure, others money, others freedom or a new life, and a lot of them just feel like they owe you because you beat them up.

All of these NPCs join your crew and you can have up to 3 of them in a fight with you, in addition to a pet. They all have highly entertainig personalities and different sets of abilities that are useful in different scenarios.

Pirate101's combat is much more up close and personal, playing more like chess where you have a bunch of different pieces that you have to strategically move around to hit different attacks with.

The different classes of pirate, which are determined by which crime got you in jail at the beginning of the game, are as follows:

Musketeers (my fave): guns and traps. The idea is that you don't have to get too close with them.

Witchdoctor: magic! They function sort of similarly to wizards in wizard101, but they can also hit things over the head with their staff and get stabbed, so no they don't.

Privateers: Healing, boosting, and commanding other pirates

Bucanners: Big sword that hits one thing very hard (and also big defense) at the cost of more agility and freedom to move.

Swashbuckler: Also hitting things, but less defense and health in exchange for more agility.

Pirate101 also has ship combat. While Wizard has convenient magical teleporters to move you between worlds, Pirate101 said "get in your boat and drive there yourself." You basically fire canonballs at each other until one ship gets damaged so badly it stops moving and gets boarded, at which point you transition to regular combat.

Pirate101 is in general, the neglected younger sibling. Kingsisle doesn't pay a quarter as much attention to Pirate, but it's still really good.

Apart from the companions and the combat, the biggest difference in pirate is probably your lack of supervision. You don't constantly have people glaring over your shoulder and telling you what to do, you just have a ragtag gang of misfits and a general order to "get money, don't die, and don't be a dick." The pirates get to be very chaotic in comparison to the wizards.

Holy mackeral, that was a lot. Anyway, I played both games a lot as a kid and spent my summer allowance on memberships for them. Now that I have an adult brain and adult money and am a lot better at video games, I have returned to enjoy them again, and I am dragging my brother along with me (don't worry, he's having fun too).

I highly recommend that you play them both, they're very fun. But this post should be a good guideline if you don't want to put that much investment into it, but still want to have half a clue what I'm talking about when I bring up either game. Thanks so much for asking!

[incorrectmahabharatquotes]

Genuinely curious, because you seem to hate the Ram Mandir... or how you think one party/ruling government is using it for political gain/votes or how it's wasting money etc.

What do you have to say about the Waqf board act? Or the infamous Shah Bano case and the way the Rajiv Gandhi government went against the decision of the Supreme Court to favour Muslim patriarchy. Or the fact that the Congress government banned books like the Satanic Verses to please a certain community. Is this not politics of appeasement?

You say that the ruling party is playing politics over religion, but hasn't every party done it? It's not like BJP was even hiding it, they've been campaigning for the Ram Mandir rebuilding for decades. It doesn't make it automatically a bad move.

Besides, Ram Mandir is built through devotee donations, so why so much vitriol against it? If Hindus are giving money to construct a temple, it's solely their own decision. I genuinely don't understand why there's so much hatred for it. If a community is reclaiming their holy land, which had been forcibly ruined and rebuilt into another type of building, it's not a bad thing. Plus, a big chunk of land was given to the Sunny Waqf board to build a beautiful mosque in Ayodhya itself, which has begun construction this year (iirc). Both communities will have their interests restored.

Why can't we move on and celebrate the Ram Mandir rebuilding and inauguration? Is decolonization and reclaiming of a place of cultural significance not important?

(I know that some people are being too aggressive about it, but the majority isn't. They're simply celebrating and praying. And some of them actually got attacked for it.)

Okay. Since you're genuinely curious, I'll answer this.

"Why am I criticising the current ruling party for playing politics of appeasement and not any of the other parties?" I'm criticizing them BECAUSE they're the ruling party. They have been in power for close to 10 years now. That's more than 1/3rd of my whole life. This is a hilarious question because I would've been criticizing the same action if it would've been taken by any other political party. I don't have a problem with the party, I have a problem with what they're doing. All citizens are SUPPOSED to do this, my friend. Criticizing your government on what they're doing wrong is a fundamental part of a democracy.

"Politics of appeasement." I hope you understand the difference between appeasement and religious nationalism. The ruling party isn't appeasing anyone. Their acts are guided by their political ideology of Hindutva. I fundamentally disagree with their ideology. I do not agree with them when they say being Hindu is integral to being an Indian. I do not believe in maintaining a Hindu hegemony in India. I simply refuse to accept an ideology that was LITERALLY INSPIRED BY FASCISM AND THE IDEAS OF RACIAL SUPERIORITY.

"What do you have to say about so-and-so?" You know, I would've criticised things I believe are harming our country and power when the governments you speak of were in power. Unfortunately, in certain cases I was not alive then to criticize them and in a few cases, I was a child and I did not know how to form complex sentences. I do not believe in essentialism, you understand? I do not believe that any religion or political party is essentially good or bad. I believe in judging them for what they do.

"They've been campaigning for the Ram Mandir for decades. It doesn't make it automatically a bad move." It's imperative for you to understand this, it is politically a good move and in all other ways a HORRIBLE move. They get the support of all the Hindus who make up the majority of the population? Decent political move. Who could begrudge them for using DIVIDE AND CONQUER as a strategy? But in doing so, what kind of monster have they created? Have they created a billion people who think religious-nationalism is an okay direction for the country's future? Is that a good move, I ask you.

"Ram mandir is built through devotee donations so it's okay." That's close to ₹1,800 crores. (Estimated amount because of course, there's no transparency in the donation system so that we know who donated what amount.) Do you seriously believe all that money came out of the pockets of average working class Indians? Or did the ultra wealthy businessmen fund this religious project and get massive tax breaks in the process? But yes, I'm sure there's no fuckery going on with the money because it's out of DEVOTION. That makes it okay, I guess.

Now we come to the part that is the worst part of this anon message, according to me.

"Reclamation and decolonization." You use these words so lightly and I find that offensive. These words are HIGHLY tied to power structures. Who has the power right now? Is it the mythic evil Islamic conquerors of 400 years ago? Or is it a political party that believes in hindu nationalism and is funded by the ultra wealthy billionaires because said party helps them get even richer? Who is reclaiming what here? I want you to ask yourself this. Can a powerful majority claim reclamation when they tear down a building to build another building there?

"They tore down the temple and built a mosque there" And now you've torn down the mosque and built a temple there. Congratulations, you've won the game. Where do we go from here? Will everyone be happy now? Has peace been restored? A great evil destroyed? What story are we telling ourselves here? Will the religious fanaticism go away now? Will the hatred that has been cultivated in the hearts of Hindus against Muslims be sated? Or will it find more avenues to spread itself?

Decolonizing the mind, right? I wonder why we're only focused on decolonizing against the islamic past and not anything else. But it's okay that India is currently colonising Kashmir. We don't believe in decolonisation when it comes to Kashmir. We don't believe in decolonizing from the system of capitalism that is choking the lives out of us. HELL, WE DON'T EVEN BELIEVE IN RECLAMATION SEEING HOW WE HAVE A PROBLEM WITH GIVING THE BARE MINIMUM RESERVATION TO CERTAIN COMMUNITIES AS A REPARATION FOR THE HARM THEY'VE HISTORICALLY AND CURRENTLY SUFFERED AND ARE STILL SUFFERING.

I don't want people to talk to me about reclamation, reparation and decolonisation before they accept their own hypocrisy.

Anon, you say have so much vitriol and hate towards a mandir. I should let people celebrate. Did I stop you personally from celebrating? Did I beat up somebody for trying to shove their religious agenda on me? All I did was talk about how sad I am that this is what we've decided to do with our country's resources. Why is one voice of dissent such a big deal to you? Do you want me to shut up and fall in line? Will that be acceptable?

- Mod S

[bobbydagen24]

Barb and Crimp are not Redeemed characters and its odd how their films gave them happy endings.

lets start with Barb for one she led armies attacking other Tribes destroying cities and imprisoning countless people all so she could get the strings.

and wipe out all other cultures deciding only her own should Remain and anyone who didn't conform to that culture would be turned into a brainwashed zombie. some people try and argue she has good intentions but frankly her intentions aren't all that good compared to everything she did and this wasn't even a problem in the first place its not like all the Tribes were at war or anything.

they were fine living separately so combining the Tribes is a nice idea but going to these extremes is not excusable in any sense given there was no legit reason for her to take such extreme action. and in the end she gets beaten she doesn't have a last minute change of heart and decide to do the Right thing ( tho to be clear this wouldn't mean it would suddenly be okay for her to face no consequences one posotive I'll say about Veneer's arc in TBT is that he was still held accountable in the end despite having a last minute change of heart because Redemption doesn't mean someone gets let off scott free if anything it means the opposite )

and after her defeat Barb is instantly forgiven for no legit reason like I know story wise you could argue its because she's queen and they don't want more conflict with the Rock Tribe. but from a basic story point of view its wrong especially for a kids film Barb isn't only let off scott free but Poppy light heartedly befriends her. and makes it clear there's no ill will so yeah showing a film where a villain who causes this level of destruction simply because they believe they are right is let off scott free is not very satisfying story telling imo.

and its bad in a kids film Teaching lack of consequences and accountability for your actions no matter how bad.

like don't get me wrong I like Barb personality wise and that's deffo why a good chunk of the fandom don't have a problem with her being let off the Hook.

but obviously villains being likable doesn't mean they shouldn't face consequences loads of people love Velvet but most of her fans can accept that she deserved to go to prison at the end for kidnapping and torturing someone. and then there's Crimp she's less of a bad example but still an example she went along with kidnapping and torturing someone simply because she didn't want to lose her Job. she came and went as she pleased only being held against her will right at the end and just because her bosses were mean to her doesn't mean she isn't still a villain. the movie acts like this makes her a victim and someone who shouldn't be blamed for V and Vs crimes when frankly yes she should she was complicit. she turned a blind eye to someone's suffering because she didn't wanna lose her pay check she's just a cowardly Henchmen not an out and out victim.

and she should have still been held accountable in the end for being an accomplice.

and I'm sorry but to circle back to my guy Creek the morality of the movies is all over the place in this regards. the fact that the movies consider characters who actively chose to do evil things of their own free will as still redeemable and deserving of happy endings. even with no actual work put in to better themselves yet Creek the literal Hostage tortured and threatened into doing a bad thing was lumped in with the actual big bad villain in the end. and was seen as deserving of a gruesome comeuppance is frankly a Horrifying sense of morality and justice in my opinion.

yes he came back in the tv show but I'm only talking about the movie cannon.

and this way of thinking in Regards to what villains do and don't deserve to be Redeemed is Honesty arsed backwards. characters who do evil things because they decided that they should get to make choices that effect and change other Tribes filled with large populations of people simply because they think their culture is better than other people's. and characters who do evil things simply because they don't want to lose a Job no matter how much they may need it are infinitely worse.

than a character who simply gave in to the very human fear of not wanting to die horrifically and who was basically forced into the role of villain due to having literally no other option other than lie down and die. I love Trolls but man these movies have a terrible sense of morality and they do not do Redemption Arcs well. 😅😅😅😅

[vulture-jack]

the "I dont think I have that symptom" to "oh i was masking it or have already found a way to circumvent the problem" realization hits like a train

bonus points if ur friends sound relieved that you finally fucking noticed

I, Jack the "I dont have sensory issues" Vulture, for example, wear socks all the time because I hate the feeling of changing textures on my feet, most of the foods I dont like are all texture based, always hated sketchbook paper because of the dry rough feeling on my hands, squicked by the feeling of human hair if it isnt mine, etc etc etc

I really said "clothes textures dont bother me" only to remember that my ENTIRE wardrobe is soft tshirts bc I cant stand anything too scratchy or stiff. like no shit its not a constant problem I've already exiled all offenders and on the off chance I have to wear something like a dress shirt I'm uncomfortable the WHOLE time.

loud noises dont bother me! I just have really good/sensitive hearing. Shutting down and wanting to cover my ears and hide in a city/populated area is a normal reaction for a country bumpkin like myself, right? RIGHT?

anyway, I don't know whats going on with my brain. I'm not claiming any specific diagnosis and with the current climate i am NOT seeking one. I just know that I relate to a LOT of the experiences reported in adhd, autism, and ocd (specifically contamination and moral scrupulosity) SO fucking much and it makes me feel seen and normal for shit that I never talked about cuz I just thought something was wrong with me and I was uniquely a freak for avoiding massive chunks of my own bedsheets as a kid bc I thought they were "contaminated"

like god im not the only one? thank fucking god. but also it sucks that I'm not the only one cuz it blows to be afraid of everything and overwhelmed and exhausted by the effort of human interaction. I didnt know that shit wasnt supposed to feel like a quick time event.

Like I KNEW masking could be subconscious and learned.

But it just seemed so unlikely, you know. What are the odds, you know? I just want attention and to make excuses for myself, right?

I finally started to believe it when my friends, many of whom are actually diagnosed, could see it in me and were affirming as hell so thank you to them cuz hoo boy I do not trust myself.

knowing that theres no way in hell the people in my family would accept that about me though. that being a major stopping point makes me so mad. my dad routinely picking up TV remotes and saying "this is what causes adhd" fucked me up for years. I was evaluated as a young child. They concluded that I was "just bored" when I was struggling to focus, getting out of my chair to walk around class, and once had a teacher softly/symbolically Tie me to a Chair with a bath towel (I could have gotten up if I wanted to, its not...completely evil). But like god. I needed help. I was miserable. I didnt understand why I was different I just knew I was and it was hell because none of my teachers knew and I had no language to tell them.

As an adult I just felt uniquely bad at being a person. I still do. I barely feel like a human being. Realizing the damage this did my psyche is probably why I spend every interaction with a person, even people i LOVE, waiting for it to be over so I can relax. I thought I was an asshole who doesn't love people. Im just...exhausted and burnt out, and terrified that unmasking is going to make me unlovable.

Honestly thank god for weed though because its really helped me get out of my own head, and examine myself. I tend to stop masking on it, and realizing that my friends still love me after an evening of letting loose for once is beautiful. I feel so loved by them and thats wonderful. I still worry constantly that people hate me and find me annoying, but it is getting better and easier to stop that train of thought the more I understand where it comes from.

Also spending over a decade years on this website with intense moral anxiety, always ready to believe I'm a monster, was a nightmare. The discourse here is a fuckin trash fire of triggers for guilt spirals and it broke me down to the point where I no longer believed I had any ability to assess whether or not I was a good person, and I just needed to do what people said good people do, and if there wasnt a clear answer I wanted to throw up and longed for someone to tell me. I'm getting better, but yall. Oof.

[randomnoteforfuturereference]

Okay, so a reason some folks abstain from voting is because they think the whole system needs to get thrown in the trash. Some of even accelerationists who deliberately want a Trump presidency because they believe he'd push things to the tipping point.

Setting all the initial issues of that ideology aside, let's say you do have your glorious revolution. The ruling class have been guillotined or chased out.

What now?

Initial overthrows tend to consist of a broad base, followed by a powerful faction being the one to ultimately come on top (Russia, China, Iran, etc). The very few times you have a relatively peaceful revolution followed by relatively peaceful transition (Velvet Revolution, dissolution of Soviet Union, etc), you have a structures intact and a populace largely on the same page.

But what if you have competing ideologies?

It's pertinent to look at the makeup of this country. In 2020, African Americans number at around 47 million or 14% of the population, and combined Native Americans/Alaskans/Hawaiians number at 10.5 million or 3%. A Gallup poll in 2023 determined that roughly 7.2% of adults identified as LGBT, with 7% not responding. In contrast, the number of people who voted for Trump was 74.2 million or 22%.

When you look at other revolutionary governments, the ones that acknowledged previously marginalized communities did so because they were a good chunk or majority of their population (eg Cuba); even in those cases you may still have marginalized groups. Whereas for most post-revolutionary governments, you either get more of the same marginalization/discrimination (eg Vietnam) or, worse, systematic targeting/genocide (eg Cambodia).

So with all that in mind, are you able and willing to fight to secure your "egalitarian paradise" and keep it from becoming Gilead? I'm not asking metaphorically.

Among the various partisan factions in the US there are armed left-wing militia groups, but guess which side is way more armed. So are you dispensing any talk of gun control and instead buying all the military-grade hardware? Are you learning how to use that rifle and basic combat tactics? Are you willing to use that gun on another human being?

If you are not prepared for that or the effect of infrastructural collapse, you could actually participate in this imperfect system by voting for a president that you may not like but can function better as damage control. All while you not only focus on your senators and representatives, but also your state government, to continue pushing the needle and making it easier for progressive causes to get passed and stay in place. All while you make sure to vote in municipal elections to have school boards that reflect your views. All while you actually reach out to communities you may not agree with to at least try and dissuade them from reactionary populism.

But if you want to burn it all down, you best also be prepared for the war that rises out of the ashes.

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

What do you think happens to Slytherins after Hogwarts? The ones who, unlike Malfoy, can't throw their parents names around and escape all trouble. The Wizarding World is tiny, so I imagine the stigma follows them into adulthood real easy, especially with the whole thing with Voldemort likely intensifying it tenfold, do you bet they'd be way more subject to suspicion and totally legal searches by the aurors where they conveniently find something to toss them in Azkaban over?

Well, remember that many of the Slytherins were not Death Eaters.

Draco was the youngest Death Eater to be inducted in. Crabbe and Goyle got high on a prefect power trip but weren't actually Death Eaters who had taken the mark at that point. The other students seem to have less and less involvement than even that (it was pretty much Draco, Crabbe, and Goyle throughout the series that were the super Slytherin Slytherins).

So, reasonably, Draco's the only one going to trial if at all. Considering all the other people who have to go to trial who did a lot worse things, including his own father who is a much juicer target, it's not surprising he got off the hook (that, and Harry thinks he owes him because of Narcissa).

Crabbe probably would have gotten a trial for dark magic voodoo arson, but his dark magic voodoo arson killed him so he gets to rot in hell.

That leaves the rest of the kiddos.

Goyle was high on a power trip, but it was also under order of the Carrows, and while Wizarding Britain could go nuts trying to try underage collaborationists that'd get... very messy... and likely shortly lead to a third wizarding war.

Pansy Parkinson tried to capture Harry for the glory points, but that makes her even less of a collaborationist than Harry so I don't expect anything to have happened to her.

And that's it, that's all we got who even aided the Death Eaters. So Daphne Greengrass, Blaise Zabini, all of them didn't do anything themselves and presumably weren't even involved.

Now, we do have some dirt on their parents. Nott's dad, known Death Eater. Greengrass's father, not a Death Eater but involved in incriminating activities per the fandom wiki, Lucius Malfoy, always a gem, and of course Crabbe and Goyle Sr. proud Death Eaters.

The reason I'm getting into this is that the kids of the parents involved in this, if they're not dead already (see Crabbe), then they're probably losing a good chunk of their money over this and get a stigma with the family name.

And that's where your ask comes in.

It was already bad in Slytherin, you have Hagrid noting casually "25% of the population is irredeemably evil" to Harry like it's a known fact, and that's before Voldemort was resurrected, but for the kids with the black mark on the last name it'll be even worse.

Probably in the aftermath there'll be attempts to um, rehabilitate Slytherin, so the new kids will have to stay on their toes but won't get it quite as bad.

This generation getting out though, well, I love Cursed Child so I will discuss it and note that Scorpius Malfoy's life is ruined over the rumor that his mother went back in time to have sex with Voldemort and he is their love child.

Is this in any way believable? No.

Do I believe something like this could ruin their lives? Yes.

Basically, Malfoy especially, will all be living on Harry (head of the Auror department's) good will and whether or not he doesn't feel like searching their house today (this is not absent in canon either, when Arthur Weasley promotes a low, that does pass, that um... lets them search certain people's houses without warrant).

So, yes, they're going to have a fun time.

[gremoria411]

Hoo boy, it was a mistake to play Ace Combat 7 before watching this.

I could probably just leave it there honestly. But I’m going to explain this.

Quick review of Ace Combat 7 - it’s not great. I really enjoyed Ace Combat - Assault Horizon when I was younger, so I bought 7 a little while after it came out and I just found it lacking. Half the missions seem to have you more at risk from environmental dangers than actual enemies, plane selection’s rather lacking unless you grind up some of the few enjoyable missions to unlock new ones (the lightning II is particularly guilty of this) and I was forced to rely on dlc planes for a good chunk of the game (there’s only three dedicated ground attack planes in the base game, all of which need to be bought, one of which is terrible). I will say that the base attack missions - get a certain amount of score within a time limit - were absolutely wonderful, some of my favourite missions in the game (especially the Snider’s Top mission), but because they’re also the easiest way to grind up currency, you have to play them over and over and over again, so the appeal wanes somewhat.

And the story…. Okay. Why are Erusea and Osea at war? Anyone know? Because I sure don’t. Yeah, I’m sure it’s explained in some backstory or other, but I would really like someone to just mention it. Because literally all the intercepted chatter is whatever the opposite of humanising is, because none of them express anything except a hatred for the enemy and a desire to attack them. So why are we fighting? Ace Combat’s cutscenes seem to think that they’re incredibly mature and weighty, but all they seem to be is people just staring at the sky and saying “what does it mean….. to fly” “what does it mean…… to fight”. Forgive me if I’m used to more than that.

I will say though, I actually really like how your wing-mates in 777 “spare” squadron are characterised (Mage Squadron just kinda sucks, moreso that you just never see them again after mission 3), I honestly wish we had more time with them because they’re just such a treat to listen to and fight alongside, since they very much don’t want to be here and are quick to remind us of that (I’m genuinely toying with plucking High Roller for use in Lancer). Also the voice cast is genuinely excellent, any fan of Persona 5 will feel right at home here, and it also led to the absolute wonderful feeling of assaulting an enemy base, and going “Lelouch Vi Brittania, is that you!?”.

Anyway, why did I feel the need to bring it up before talking about the new Gundam: Requiem for Vengeance trailer? Because it feels like it’s around the same ballpark. If I didn’t already know *why* the Federation and Zeon were at war, it’d feel like the whole independence thing would be swept under the rug.

“Why do we fight?” “Because those are our orders” - hey, wouldn’t it be more interesting to characterise someone as actually a true believer in spacenoid independence? Wouldn’t it be interesting to have them talk about what spacenoid independence actually means to them? Wouldn’t it be interesting to engage with the propaganda told to the population of Side 3 to motivate them to war? Wouldn’t that be relevant to an audience living in a world where the media is all-pervasive, and “alternative facts” are rife? Oh, the main character doesn’t believe in Newtypes and has a “Well, you gotta do what you gotta do” attitude to proceedings? Alright then. It just feels like a missed opportunity. Were I feeling especially uncharitable I might even call it cowardly.

To be honest, I think the main thing that’s bothering me here is just the line delivery for the Pink-Haired Character and the Doctor - they’re just so flat, and their lines are just blindingly obvious. “The Federation’s new mobile suit. This could turn the tide of the war” - it’s not foreshadowing if you just state what’s going to happen. “The Feds you save will just come back and kill my people, Doc!” - yeah, but you’re under the Antarctic Treaty, governing the treatment of POWs in wartime. Leaving them to die would likely constitute a war crime (I know Zeon’s got a lot of those, but still). It just feels like baby’s first moral dilemma. Also when Iria Sorari’s giving an explanation on newtypes, she just sounds bored, like she’s reading from a cue card. Y’know, it’s only one of the central precepts to the war for independence, don’t sound too passionate or anything.

Lastly - and I’m aware these are super nit-picky - when the Zaku slashes the shell in the last part of the trailer, it should have just flown off and penetrated anyway. It doesn’t lose all momentum just because you cut it in two. Also, I get that Japanese-to-English is never gonna be a 1:1 translation or anything. But Gundam’s had a bunch of series translated prior that can act as a cheat-sheet for pronunciation and finer details, so it’s really annoying to catch slip-ups here.

Right, now that’s all the negativity done with, what did I actually like?

Mobile suit designs are still top-notch, I really like the Gouf Custom and Guntank designs (it’s an Igloo-style Assault Guntank) in the new trailer, and I really like the new GM design - it feels like it extrapolated out what a GM based on the new Gundam would look like, and also remembered that the Federation’s mobile suits were derived from captured Zaku’s, hence the visor resembling a monoeye - it’s a really good way to take the design is what I’m getting at, and I fully expect we’ll see a model of it. However, it is just very odd seeing the more modern Zaku design side-by-side with the older Gouf Custom and Guntank designs. They had to model them anyway for the new engine, so why not go the extra mile and give us a greebled Gouf Custom or Guntank? (Yeah I know it’ll be a cost thing, and you *could* argue that a more “modern” Guntank would be the Assault Guntank, but come on) I really liked seeing the new Zaku I design also, I just don’t have an awful lot to say on it - it’s nice.

I do expect that we’ll get models of the new Zaku I and GM, but I couldn’t say on the Gouf Custom or Assault Guntank.

EDIT: Okay, so I posted this and had two immediate realisations:

Iris’s Zaku appears to have been repaired in several scenes in the trailer, so it’s likely it’ll get trashed at some point (there may also be another kit of it).

The reason the Gouf Custom hasn’t been given the greebling treatment like nearly every other mobile suit is likely so they can just make a coulor variant of its existing high grade kit, rather than having to make entirely new runners (plus they’d likely feel compelled to completely update the internals too, which would be rather expensive). It’s likely that the new Zaku II (boy I wish this thing had a proper name) will be at least partially based on the most recent Zaku II hg kit internally, again as a cost-saving measure (and a practical one too, come to think of it).

[tickfleato]

tell us more about the greys i'm so intrigued

WEHEHE ok so i DO have a slightly outdated post about them here! it's accurate about their biology but not 100% on culture and i've since retconned their average height to be a little shorter, though i kept enen's height the same so i didn't have to redraw their ref and because it's really funny if they're a chilchuck situation.

long ass reply under the cut

Anyway. the greys (in my setting) are by far the oldest spacefaring sophonts, and in fact their original homeworld has been uninhabitable and lifeless for hundreds of years. the majority of their population belongs to the imperial culture (which... i should come up with a better name for What empire it is... but it's hard to come up with grey names for things due to their lack of vocal language), which is highly conformist and is the main reason that despite their advanced genetic engineering capabilities they all look pretty much the same.

for most of the empire and most people in it, life is pretty good. they are largely post-scarcity, having access to large mining operations on uninhabitable planets and producing most materials from bio-machines. people are required to work jobs but generally one is given plenty of choice as to what they want to do in life and it's ok to change. basic rights (sustenance, shelter, etc) are guaranteed.

however... there are absolutely people who fall through the cracks, and their society stands on some unethical columns. imperial society is deeply ableist towards anyone who cannot or does not want to be 'fixed'. this mostly applies to mental illnesses & cognitive disabilities, as well as telepathy-related disabilities (enen, for instance, has the equivalent of a bad speech impediment due to what amounts to brain damage, on top of difficult-to-treat PTSD and alien contamination of the mind).

and now of course we get to OVERSEERS!!

i explained it a bit already but they're essentially their equivalent of AI. whether you want to actually consider it AI or not is wobbly. they're fully made out of meat like all grey tech, and their core minds & brain matter are grown artificially, but a significant chunk of their computing power and the source of much of their personalities and memories while still growing come from a hivemind of grey bodies. and well, you might wonder how they get enough people to agree to subsume their consciousness to a hivemind...

coercion! it is nominally a volunteer position but in practice it happens to:

people with certain incurable mental illnesses or severe distress that can't be fixed (whether forcibly or not) as becoming part of the whole usually makes those issues irrelevant to the overseer itself. enen would technically be in this position but for plot reasons they aren't allowed to volunteer.

certain types of criminals that are too far gone for re-educate. this is carefully arranged so that they don't 'infect' overseers and no individual OS is allowed to get more than one at a time so that they don't form a 'clump'

people who were mentally damaged in some way from botched re-ed, therapy, etc. this is sometimes done on purpose when there's a shortage of volunteers but it's rare and illegal

a certain number of greys are grown with the intention of becoming seers when they hit adulthood, to make sure that quotas are filled when there aren't enough volunteers

also there sometimes are genuine volunteers who aren't going into it just because they've been made to believe it's their only option :) but that's relatively uncommon, most people think it's kind of scary

NOW OF COURSE there are other greys that aren't part of this society, and they all have varying customs and views and government and etc. they are all considered "fringe" cultures by the core. by and large they don't have access to all the tech that the core has, but some transhumanist (trans...greyist?) groups have their own technological advances.

heights for the anatomically standard greys are outdated

the empire currently (approximately for the past century or so) has a hands-off approach to interspecies meddling, and doesn't colonize inhabited planets, but they have in the past. their attitude towards other greys, though, is uh... well, it varies, but there are some sticky situations.

it's worst and stickiest when it comes to the claymin.

the claymin are descended from transhumanist/post-flesh greys, but are considered by all parties to be a separate species... sort of. they have access to the same genetic tech as the empire and can reproduce on their own as opposed to solely growing through exiles like other post-flesh groups, and have completely different anatomy as their true bodies have been engineered down to basically just a brain, referred to as the core, which can be put in various modular constructed bodies.

they are, however, mysteriously exempt from the 'hands off other sophonts' rule that the empire has. when enen was a combat mech pilot, this is who they were fighting.

i'll leave off there... for now. i can elaborate on some of the other groups later :3 hope you liked reading all that

[lampmanliveblogs]

THIS. THIS ENTIRE SEQUENCE. STUNNING. JAWDROPPING. GORGEOUS.

You guys know how much I love pretty lights, and this is like… the prettiest light.

Hold on, I gotta go back and rewatch this entire sequence, it’s just that beautiful. The animation!

When Luz and King do their second roar, Luz bounces back from the force, that’s so cute. And then when she flies up, she lets go of Stringbean and catches the butt of the staff and the she and Eda spin around to draw the big spell circle. And then they twirl around inside the circle and cast the spell together. Good stuff, good stuff.

Inside the Archive House, the witch kids and Camila are doing their best to make sure no one gets hurt even as the Tiara Halls begin crumbling around them. And hey, glyphs still work, that’s good.

Aw man, what will Amity say when she sees Luz’ transformation? My guess is she’ll say nothing, because she will be too stunned to speak.

(Future Lampman here: I think I noticed the first time through but didn’t bring it up, but Amity is using a plant glyph and Willow is using a fire glyph. Plants are of course Willow’s thing, and aside from abomination magic, Amity is known to use a fireball spell. They’re using each other’s elements.)

Gorgeous.

…

HOLD ON A MINUTE! How come King and Dad Titan in the In-Between only have three fingers, but the Titan’s skeleton clearly has five?????!?!?!!!!?!?? How???? Okay, uh,,, c’mon Lampman, you’re good at coming up with weird ideas for this kinda stuff…

I guess… maybe… maybe the strange big claws we see on King and Dad Titan’s hands are actually like… some sort of covering over their four fingers? Not sure what purpose that would have, evolutionary, but then again, these are magical beings. Plus, King doesn’t have wings right now, while he’s small enough to use then, but Dad Titan had wings (we can even see remnants of them in the water on The Titan’s right side) while he was WAY too big to possibly use them.

Anyway, time for something completely different.

We can see quite a lot of bones from other Titans lying around. On the left side of the image we can spot a skull (and I think there might be another corpse in the upper right corner, but it’s a bit difficult to tell with the clouds). Not only is there a skull, but there is a pretty large landmass. Which is odd, because didn’t that book King was reading at the beginning of Young Blood, Old Souls say that there were only a few, smaller remains of other titans to be found in the boiling sea?

I dunno, maybe I’m misremembering.

Also, tough luck for anyone who lived on the left arm, your house is now sideways. We can literally see entire villages or towns in some shots, so, uh… the people of the Boiling Isles are gonna have to learn how to build high-rises with cheap apartments real fast, or find some other way to deal with the large chunk of the population that is now homeless.

One downside with this super smooth, super gorgeous animation is that it makes it slightly more difficult to get screenshots in motion that looks good. Whatever, they’re gonna cut Philip Phungi off from his source of power. Callback to season one episode four, The Intruder, where, when asked by Eda where magic comes from, Luz replied ”The heart.”

(Future Lampman here: We have a trio of heroes who crashes into the large body of a monster in order to get inside and take out the core which is the source of its power… am I taking about this scene right here, or am I talking about Chrono Trigger, if you chose to crash the Epoch into Lavos’ shell in order to skip the first eleven phases?)

(Future Future Lampman here: I can’t believe I forgot to mention it, but the music in the background here is the melody from the opening theme. And you know things are hype in an anime when the main theme starts playing.)

Raine is alive! YES! Ha, Belos, you absolute failure! You buffoon! Raine was literally in the midst of things, and you couldn’t even kill them. The only person you’ve managed to kill so far was a powerless human, and she came back strong.

And that is Raine’s Rhapsody/Eda’s Requiem Raine is whistling.

[stories-and-chaos]

Tarnished pt 18

[Helluva Boss AU where Blitzø’s childhood theft from Stolas’ palace is discovered and major consequences ensue for everyone involved.]

[Part 18/?? Word count: 1989 Cw: gaslighting, mention of domestic abuse, anguage]

—————

The troupe quickly set up their tents in Greed, outside of Legalesedale. They steered clear of Notamafia Town, Extortionville, Corruptcopsburg, and Noyakuzahere City; those big population centers had crazy high taxes for out of towners. Legalesedale was slightly better in that regard.

The sudden change of location threw a lot of the performers off; they had to take a day to pitch tents and rest up. When the shows resumed, there were problems.

And they all had to do with Fizzarolli. He, Barb, and Barb’s mom were all still upset from Blitzo abandoning them. Tilly refused to believe what Cash had told them. The kids were mostly angry and sad at Blitzo’s absence. That icy chunk feeling in Fizz’s tummy hadn’t gone away. A couple performances by himself was a hurdle.

A solo act forever scared him.

Fizz liked the applause and laughter. It felt great to make so many people happy with something he had fun doing. But without his friend, the pressure was too much. Too many eyes on him. He’s started flubbing. He missed a catch juggling and he could feel Cash’s disapproval after.

He had to be perfect. He had to practice and be the best clown possible on his own. But that icy chunk wouldn’t go away!

If anything, the more he tried, the worse he got. He kept missing catches, dropping the spinning plates, tripping during the acrobatic parts. Cash was getting more and more angry with him. Fizz realized those looks the ringleader gave him were familiar. But he’d never been on the receiving end.

That had been Blitzo. Is that why Blitzo left? That thought didn’t make him less sad about the other boy abandoning them, it just made him more confused.

Almost three weeks into their stay in Greed, Fizz barely felt any thrill at performing. The iciness was all through him now. But he couldn’t give up. He was going to be better than that jerk who left. He was going to be perfect.

His hands decided otherwise and he struggled to make balloon animals. That crowd’s laughter that day hurt. After that round of performances, Cash pulled him aside.

“Fizzarolli, kid, what’s the big deal?” The adult imp looked and sounded sympathetic but something was off. Maybe the way he towered over Fizz or the slight hiss on his words. “You gotta get back to normal, you’re the best clown we got, don’t want to disappoint anyone. Right?” Cash’s eyes were watery and pleading.

Fizz felt bad for thinking the ringmaster didn’t care. He was probably upset about Blitzo being gone too, but the show had to go on. The little clown nodded eagerly. “I-I’ll do better sir.”

“Good, because the whole troupe is relying on you.” Then he gave Fizz a heavy handed push to go get dinner. The boy picked listlessly at his potatoes, trying to figure out how he could be good enough again.

Barb sat down next to him. “Still having a hard time Fizz?” He nodded glumly, eating a mouthful so he didn’t have to actually talk. She took a bite of her chimera nuggets before continuing. “Wanna team up?”

Fizz swallowed hard, “Huh? But you never liked the clown act…”

She shrugged. “I gotta find a new act, since…” her brow furrowed angrily, “can’t exactly do a twin act without a twin.” She bit into a nugget, tearing off its head to vent her anger.

The ice thawed a bit. He and Barb had always been friends, even if he’d been closer to Blitzo. Just having a friend beside him was calming. “Okay, let’s start planning our new act after dinner.”

He and Barb ended up being less comedic and more acrobatic, but they worked well together. It took a few months of practice before they were up to live performances. Before then Barb would wait just outside the ring, her steady presence helping him regain his confidence.

Their comedic bits had Barb playing the foil to Fizz’s humor. She had a way of looking completely disinterested that Fizz was able to adapt his jokes to. Their take on the pie gag had Fizz offering multiple flavors and spinning the rejects like plates. There would be too many to balance and all the pies would fall on Fizz. Barb’s closing line of “I wanted cake,” was a hilarious finisher.

Fizz’s renewed confidence and improved performance meant the disapproving glares from Cash eased up. Not that his demands for perfection were any less, but Fizz was meeting them.

Barb’s mom, Tilly, continued to clash with her husband. Not vocally, not after a second argument about Blitzo resulted in her wearing high necked and long sleeved dresses for weeks. But she refused to sleep in the same bed and made no effort to make sure Cash ate or had clean outfits. She wanted to head back to Pride, but didn’t dare leave Barb and Fizz alone with the older man.

Cash, ever the petty demon, had others in the circus give Tilly extra work constantly. Since she hadn’t performed since being pregnant with the twins, she did a lot of childcare as well as helping behind the curtains. She was a capable imp. Cash took advantage of that and her caretaker personality at every opportunity. She was constantly on edge. The never ending work meant she never had the chance to go to any other Ring on her own.

Barb was annoyed at her mom’s stubborn insistence that Blitzo wouldn’t leave them the way Cash claimed. Wouldn’t they have heard from him at some point? Not that the girl wasn’t hurt by her twin’s absence, but the lack of any communication pointed to him tossing the family away. Just like their dad said.

The circus continued to perform throughout Hell. Even though the troupe members suggested shows in Pride again, Cash refused them all. No amount of persuasion would change his mind. Fortunately the Greed Ring in particular enjoyed the clown and circus aesthetic. They made enough to offset any grifting that occurred in that Ring.

By the time Fizzarolli and Barb were in their mid teens, he was the star of the All Imp Circus. His stage fright of being solo was mostly gone. Which was probably for the best; his act with Barb was being scheduled less often.

Not that they didn’t enjoy performing together. But Barb was less interested in the spotlight; she preferred helping the strongmen act toss out creeps and troublemakers. As Fizz got more popular, there were more weirdos around the circus. She was glad to send them packing, usually with bloodied faces.

When Fizz’s clown idol, the Deadly Sin Mammon, announced the first show tour he’d done in years, the teenager saved up to go. He even did extra performances to get tickets for him and Barb. He knew his best friend wouldn’t let him go alone. And she didn’t like clowns enough to pay for a ticket near the stage like Fizzarolli was. But if he already had one for her, she couldn’t say no.

Which was exactly what happened. He even convinced her into a Mammon brand crop top. And he was up close to the King of Greed when he announced the first clown pageant. Fizz was so excited he didn’t notice Barb’s skepticism.

“Okay, even for that guy, that was too many clowns,” Barb said later as they walked home.

“I have to win that pageant someday. Can you imagine how amazing it would be to get to work with him?” Fizz was giddy with the thought.

“Fuck that!” Barb said vehemently. “You’re already the star of our circus. Being that creep’s mascot sounds pretty lame in comparison.”

“But it’s the chance to work with my idol Barb. He’s giving someone new an opportunity to be in the spotlight!” His eyes sparkled in the flickering streetlights. “He’s an inspiration!”

“Yeah, of what not to do,” she said under her breath. “But were all those clowns, rants, an over hyped commercial, and puking on stage worth what you paid for tickets?”

“So worth it!” He sighed. Behind them was the faint sound of someone else on the street, but nothing unusual. “Barb, do you think I can win if I work really really hard?”

Barb smirked and punched her friend’s shoulder. “I think you’re the best clown in Hell and you’ll be the new clown face on everything if you want, contest or no contest.”

Then the sound of someone behind them was suddenly the sound of someone dashing into their path. “Holy, shit!” The gangly imp was flushed and sweaty, almost drooling at seeing Fizz. “You're Fizzarolli! Oh, MAN! Your stuff is great!”

Fizz hunched in on himself. “Oh- hey, there. Thank you, I appreciate that.” The duo tried to walk away but the bespectacled imp ran in front again. “Woah, oh-okay.” Fizz stumbled back, his tail wrapping around his legs.

The other imp kept talking. “After seeing your shows, I wanted to get into clown performing too!” Fizz winced at his fan’s excitement while Barb glared at him. “I’m really good!” Fizz started to hold out his hand to shake when Barb said, “Hang on, you’re that asshat that keeps trying to peep in his dressing room.”

The other imp ignored her and grabbed the young clown’s hand. “I have the best idea for a duo performance between us, that should spice up your act. Picture this: We start it like a romantic, ballroom dance or a-“

Barb shoved him away from Fizz. “Fuck off creepazoid. That’s the sleaziest pitch I’ve ever heard.”

“Who the fuck do you think you are bitch? I was talking to Fizzy!” He looked around the young woman and tried to grab Fizz’s hand again. “I’m sorry Fizzy, I’m not normally so aggressive-“

Barb laughed at him. “Yeah, you’re normally a limp dick hiding behind curtains trying to take a peek. Get lost fucko.”

“Nobody asked you bitch! Fizz, tell her to back off. You don’t want me to go, right? We’re gonna talk about doing an act together!”

Fizz, his tail wrapped around him as he stayed behind Barb, kept his hands to his chest so the other couldn’t grab him again. “We- we have to go now! Thanks though!” They tried to move past the fan again but he grabbed Fizz’s tail as the two walked by.

Fizz squeaked in surprise. Barb, seeing what made him stop, whirled around. A quick move had her kicking the guy in the groin. His face turned redder as he doubled over. “I told you to get lost fucko. And if I see you at the circus again, you’ll be singing soprano for life.”

Fizz held his tail in both hands as they finally walked away from the creep. Said creep was curled up under the streetlight, both hands covered his crotch as he spluttered in pain. “FIZZ! FIZZAROLLI!” When neither of the pair looked back, he screeched. “FINE! Fuck both of you elitist bitches! Your act’s fucking TRASH ANYWAYS!”

“Hellfire Fizz, how do you attract all these fucking weirdos?” Barb grumbled as they put more distance between them and the other imp.

“Barb…what if he’s right, what if my acts are trash?” His voice was shaking as he remembered the days when he couldn’t do any of his routines right. “What if I’m never good enough?”

The girl looked at him in disbelief. “Dude, don’t listen to a jackass like him. You’re plenty good enough. You pull the crowds to prove that.”

“But I need to be perfect!”

“Mmm, no, nobody’s perfect Fizz.”

“I just need to keep practicing, and someday, maybe I’ll be good enough for Mammon.”

Barb could only sigh at Fizzarolli’s determined expression. “Let's get home and we can talk about what kind of practice you wanna do tomorrow.”

Fizz gave her a sweet smile that was part and parcel to his personality. “Thanks Barb.”

—————

<<First <Prev Next>

[neechees]

since miisagi has been a bit of a topic here lately, i'm curious about your perspective on a narrative they've been posting about lately. they've recently been reblogging/posting posts calling it ignorant for people to say israeli people should just move out of the country, because most people who participate in colonialism are disenfranchised by their original countries (used america and australia as examples) and we need to have some amount of sympathy for that. what are your thoughts on this concept? it seemed like bullshit to me at a first glance, but i figured since i'm a white descendant i should probably ask like an Actual native person for their thoughts

I'm gunna start of answering this by showing a screenshot from web-archive of vaer blog & a "before you follow list" on that blog in 2018 (& this is AFTER vae started calling vaemselves "Ojibwe"). Look at the second last bulletpoint under the "Do not follow if you are a ____" heading.

Lol. Vae have been posting some "both sides" bullshit according to my beloved Palestinian mootie, so I think it's pretty safe to say that this person is a zionist. Normally, I'd say that 2017 is quite a while ago and is a long enough time for a person to have changed, but if this person is STILL using some z*onist talking points, again I'm inclined to believe vaer position is relatively unchanged.

Now, I'm not Palestinian so I'm not going to try to tell Palestinians how to decolonize or how they should feel about settlers on THEIR land. Unlike some other people. But I think it bears reminding that this is literally what Isntreal's zionism uses as a justification for its colonial existence, and as a justification for Palestinian genocide. Isr*el has also done things such as carrying out bombings against the Iraqi Jewish population in order to encourage them to move to Isr*el in 1950-1, which worked, so it becomes this loop of "its dangerous for you there, come move here!". (And I don't mean to say that certain groups, or in this case that I provided, Jewish people, are not discriminated against to the point of fearing for their own safety as it is already, that much is true: but rather its that this colonial State will weaponize that fact and then help commit atrocities against the population it claims to want to protect in order to reinforce genocide & colonization.)

People often use the "imagine if someone went into your house and said 'this is mine now' and just kicked you out" to try help people understand how fucked up the colonization of Turtle Island was & how stupid it is that people still celebrate people like Columbus. In a lot of cases, that analogy is quite literally what is happening in Palestine. Palestinians are quite literally being kicked out of their actual houses to make way for settlers.

So vaer literally just parroting colonial talking points, and given the screenshot above I am not inclined to give vaem the benefit of doubt. If anything this kind of shows me vae have DEFINITELY spent a good chunk of vaer life as a White person because the irony of defending the existence and settlement of one colonial, genocidal state (Isntreal) but not another (the "Americas"), despite the fact that the EXACT same tactics for genocide & colonization have been used in both, while claiming to be "Indigenous" to the latter and talking about Indigenous rights & issues that vae may not even have had to live through is just. Too much. The richness of calling OTHER people "ignorant" is red velvet rich.

[thewillofdeez]

50/50: A Shanks/OC (and Beckman/OC) Romance - Chapter 3: Old Friends and New

Summary: A twenty year journey of friendship, love, and heartache between Shanks and the woman he loves.

Chapter 3 word count: 3071

The next morning, Riley, Shanks, and Beckman gathered the last of the items they needed from Riley’s home into a bag, which Beckman slung across his chest.

“You guys ready?” she asked.

“We are if you are,” Shanks said with a smile. “Let’s do this.”

“And…and you’re sure you still –”

“Oh my God, Riley,” Beckman said, grabbing her face and forcing her to meet his eyes. “Yes. We want you with us.” Beckman pulled her to him and kissed her on the top of her head. “Stop it. Okay?” Riley was still a little teary and unsure from the night before, and must have asked the men a dozen times already if they were really sure. She didn’t think she’d be able to believe them until she was on the ship and thoroughly out to sea. But the reassurance certainly helped.

She smiled and nodded. “Okay. Let’s go. I promise I won’t ask again.”

Shanks and Beckman opened the front door and stepped out, and Riley followed, closing the door behind her and taking a moment to look up at the building that had been her home and workspace for the last time, bidding it a silent goodbye.

“Umm, Riley?” Shanks said. Riley turned around. What appeared to be a good chunk of Isha Island’s population was standing in front of her - her patients, her friends, people she did business with…easily over a hundred people had come to see her off. At the front of the crowd was her old teacher, Dr. Hikaru, now rather aged and bent and well into her retirement. She had been the one to help Riley become a doctor in the first place, and who passed her practice onto her. In a way, it was sort of because of her that Riley was now able to go on this adventure. Riley couldn’t hold back the tears as she went to the old doctor and engulfed her in a hug, allowing it to really sink in that she might never see these people again. It was a bittersweet realization.

Shanks and Beckman stood back and allowed Riley the time to say goodbye to everyone. Some people even came with gifts, and Shanks and Beckman’s arms quickly filled with items - a few bottles of sake and rum, crayon drawings from some of her younger patients, baskets of fruit and dried meat, and more. By the time she had worked her way through the crowd, the two were thoroughly bogged down.

“Bye everyone! I’ll miss you!” She turned and waved to her village one final time as she and her friends crested a hill, and the village slowly sunk out of sight, hundreds of hands waving back at her.

Riley took some items away from the men to lighten their load, and together they made their way to Bill’s house and the shipyard.

Bill greeted them as they approached, waving enthusiastically. He brought Riley in for a bone-crushing hug - the man sometimes forgot how big he was, but Riley couldn’t complain. This was going to be the last time she’d see him for some time, after all, if ever. Together, they loaded the last of the items onto the ship. On the deck, wind whipping through her hair, Riley couldn’t help but be a little nervous. Not only had she never been out to sea, but she didn’t really know much about sailing, her boat in town being quite simplistic compared to a full-sized ship. Bill, Shanks, and Beckman had walked her though how to handle the ropes and steer, and she’d been reading up on the subject as well, but this was going to be her first time actually putting what she’d learned into practice. Not only that, but this ship was far larger than she had ever expected, and it was, for the moment, just the three of them. It was doable, but it would be difficult.

“Bill, thank you for everything,” Shanks said, embracing the larger man.

“We could never repay you for this,” added Beckman.

“We can and we will,” Shanks responded with a sly grin, “When we get some treasure under our belts.”

Bill laughed. “No need, truly. It’s been a joy! I wish I had workers like you around here more often. You boys take care of Riley, you hear?”

“We will!” said Beckman with a smile and a fond look at their new crewmate. “We’ll keep her safe.”

Finally, it was Riley’s turn to say goodbye. Bill brought her into a hug, this one gentler. He then held her out in front of him at arm’s length. “Your family would be so proud of you,” he said softly, then tilted his head in thought. “Perhaps not for the piracy part, but in general.” Riley laughed, trying to hold back more tears - she’d done more than enough of that in the last 24 hours, thank you. “Everything you went through, everything you’ve accomplished as a doctor…and your journey is only just beginning. You’re gonna do great, kid.”

“Love you, Bill.” Riley said, rubbing an eye with her hand. “Thank you.” One more embrace and he released her, stepping down the gangplank and back onto land.

Shanks and Riley lifted the gangplank as Beckman worked on unfurling the sails, then made his way to the helm. They waved goodbye to Bill and his family and team one last time, and the ship was off. When the course was set and the sails filled with wind, Riley made her way to the stern and leaned on the railing, watching as Isha Island became nothing more than an ever-shrinking spot in the distance. Shanks joined her, resting his crossed arms on the railing. They shared a smile, before resuming their watch on the speck of land in the distance. 

When the island was no longer visible, Riley spoke. “So, Captain, what’s the plan?”

“Welp, Phase I is to find people for the rest of the senior officer roles. I’ve got a vice captain and a doctor, but we need at a minimum a navigator, a sniper, a cook, a musician, a shipwright, and a helmsman. After that, we flesh out the rest of the crew. You’ll have a medical team of your own, eventually. And from there, we’ll see where it goes. We’ll build up our reputations, get our names out there, get stronger, maybe cause some trouble for the World Government.” He shot her a wink. “You’re gonna look great on a wanted poster.”

“And the One Piece?” Riley asked, smirking.

Shanks barked out a laugh. “We’ll get there in time. Officers first.”

Over the next half a year, Shanks, along with Beckman and Riley, began to assemble their officers.

The first person they added to their crew was an enormous teenager named Lucky Roux. He’d helped the trio out of a scuffle elsewhere in the South Blue. He and Shanks got to talking, Shanks learned the man was a line cook by trade with dreams of being a chef, and suddenly Shanks was helping him make that dream a reality aboard their ship.

In the East Blue, along the Gecko Islands archipelago, they found Yasopp, a sniper. Riley was surprised to learn that Shanks had met the man before and he had previously turned down an invitation to join Shanks’s crew. But as she and Beckman knew, Shanks was, if nothing else, persistent. This time when Shanks asked, Yasopp said yes at the insistence of his wife. Riley watched as he bid her and his young son goodbye to join the crew. Yasopp was also the one to name Shanks’s crew the Red Hair Pirates, and created the first version of their jolly roger, painting it on the mainsail: a skull and crossbones with a mop of crimson red hair.

Elsewhere in the East Blue, they met a young man named Limejuice, an amateur shipwright who left his father’s company to join the crew.

In the North Blue they met Building Snake, a navigator who had washed ashore a rocky, deserted island when he was shipwrecked, his entire crew presumed dead. He had initially planned to come with them only until he could reach another island, but it was only a matter of time before he agreed to become a permanent fixture of the crew.

In the West Blue, the Red Hair Pirates came across a musician called Bonk Punch. It was because of Riley, actually, that he joined the crew. Bonk had a pet monkey named Monster, who was only a few weeks old at the time. In a village that had been ravaged by pirates, Riley had gotten to work doing damage control, tending to the injured while the rest of the crew drove the other pirates out.

“Please,” Riley heard a voice as a tall figure emerged from the settling dust. “I know you’re not a veterinarian, but…please help him.” In his large hands was a tiny monkey with a gash across its chest bleeding profusely.

Riley nodded at the man, taking the monkey from him. Logically there were humans who might have needed her immediate assistance more, but she couldn’t say no to the big man and his small companion. She patched up Monster, and when he was back to full health, it took no convincing from her and Shanks to have them join the crew. When Monster grew up, Shanks was very insistent on him being considered an officer of the ship in his own right, and not just Bonk’s pet. He was, after all, a very smart monkey.

And on the Grand Line, the crew met Gab, their helmsman, an enormous man with intimidating looks but the kindest heart of perhaps all of them. Gab had been working under duress for a much crueler pirate crew, and when the Red Hair Pirates encountered them, engaging them in battle and eventually sinking their ship, Gab was quick to escape and join them.

What Shanks had said to Riley when they first met remained true - Shanks wanted kind people on his team, and all of the assembled officers met that description. Which wasn’t to say they weren’t capable of fighting, or even killing - they were, and they did when they had to. But as a crew, their goal wasn’t to cause chaos, instill fear in the average person, or get copious amounts of gold at the expense of others. It was to live freely, and to help where they could.

With the senior officers assembled, Phase II began. The Red Hair Pirates had already begun climbing the ranks of formidable pirate crews, with each member having a wanted poster boasting a decently-sized bounty (except for Riley's – as the sole non-combatant member of the crew, she was only worth 20,000, but she was determined to get that number up). Riley proudly displayed them in the mess hall every time a new one came out. They had been written about in the papers numerous times, taken on Marines both on land and at sea, and had a unique reputation: The World Government hated them, of course. Many other pirate crews hated them. But on average, while they were initially met with fear and loathing on every new island they visited, they always seemed to befriend the average person along the way. 

It took another year after that, but eventually they were able to say that the Red Hair Pirates were complete, with ten senior officers (including Monster) and 49 pirates working under them, plus Shanks, totaling 60 pirates. Shanks and Beckman had no trouble recruiting crew members - by this point, they’d developed enough of a reputation that they were worried they’d eventually have to start turning good people away.

True to his word, Shanks did provide Riley with her own medical team - working under her were a pair of brothers from Fishman Island named Dirk and Dane. They were young, but had good hearts and were eager to learn.

Shanks, Riley found herself musing one day, was an excellent captain. He was a natural for the role - brave, charismatic, a strategic thinker, and he cared deeply about every member of his crew. He kept a list in his quarters of everyone’s birthdays and insisted on celebrating every single one, was always happy to spend time with even the lowest-ranked people on the crew, treating them as if they were a member of his inner circle, and was very good at making sure everyone knew how much he appreciated them. It was the kind of family-building on a pirate ship that, as far as Riley knew, only people like Whitebeard had ever really achieved.

For her part, Riley was happy. Though it wasn't always easy being the only woman amongst fifty-nine men (and oh how she longed for the day when another girl was willing to join the crew), not a single man aboard ever gave her any hassle, and she had a friendly, playful relationship with most of them. She had their respect both as a senior officer, and as a doctor. Which wasn’t to say they couldn’t be kind of crude, boisterous, and gross - they were still men, and pirates at that - but she never once felt intimidated or endangered around them, which was more than she could say about some men she’d met at bars. If anything, the rest of the crew had a tendency to be annoyingly overprotective of her - her job was to be the crew’s doctor, and in order for her to be able to do her job in the midst of battle, the rest of the crew would act as her protector so she could work on the injured. In doing so, however, her protectors often ended up being injured themselves.

And that was the only thing Riley didn’t like about life on the Gold Dragon. Every other member of the crew was a fighter in some respect. Shanks with his sword, Beckman with his rifle, and both of them with their growing Haki. Axes, guns, staffs, slingshots, knives, and even just feet and fists - every other member of the Red Hair Pirates knew how to fight in some way, and they all worked together to help each other get stronger and share their knowledge. Hell, even Dirk and Dane knew a good bit of Fishman Karate and were able to hold their own in battle when they weren’t assisting Riley. None of them needed Devil Fruits to be a formidable crew, they were powerful on their own merits.

And that just left Riley, the weakest, the one who didn’t know how to fight, whose strength was limited, and who felt powerless about it. The one who had to rely on everyone else for her own safety. In the early days with the crew it was a minor annoyance to her, but as more and more years passed it increasingly became something she hated.

After a difficult and almost devastating battle with a fleet of Marines led by a Vice Admiral, Riley and her team had just finished fixing up the crew. In the process of defending her, Beckman had gotten a bullet to the back, just barely missing a kidney, Yassop got a minor concussion, and Gab had been stabbed. As she treated their wounds, the men still carried smiles on their faces, despite the pain. She knew that they didn’t mind looking out for her and getting hurt or killed in the process, but she minded.

When the last patient left her office, Riley made her way to the upper deck to get some fresh air. Looking out over the sea and lost in thought, she almost didn’t notice when Shanks came up beside her.

"Berry for your thoughts?" He said, grabbing her attention. Riley looked at him, then back to the sea.

"The guys got their asses kicked today," she said quietly.

"Eh, we win some, we lose some," Shanks replied with a shrug. "There were no casualties, and I consider that a win in itself. Just means we gotta get stronger."

"Shanks…” Riley began, unsure of how to continue. How would he react? She had known Shanks for several years at this point, but a request like this, from subordinate to captain, was uncharted territory. And she knew that of all the people on the crew, Shanks felt perhaps the most protective of her. She looked up to meet his gaze. “I want to get stronger too. I want to learn how to fight."

Shanks almost let out a laugh, but the look on her face stopped him. “You’re serious?”

“Deadly,” she replied, echoing the words he had spoken to her a long time ago.

Shanks sighed. "Riley, you don't need to learn how to fight. You have fifty-nine men who would die for you without question."

"See, that's the thing," she shot back, "I don't want anyone to die for me. Beck got shot defending me, Shanks, the bullet missed his kidney by less than an inch. If it had been any worse I don't know if I could save him without getting him to a hospital. I hate seeing you guys get beaten up taking care of me."

"None of us mind, Riley, we–"

"It doesn't matter if you don't mind. I mind. I want to be able to defend myself, and you, and everyone else on this ship. I want to be able to hold my own with the rest of the crew. Please."

Shanks looked at her, and could see the desperation in her eyes. She'd make a good fighter, sure. She was lithe, and fast, and with some work he was positive she could effectively wield any number of weapons. But allowing her to fight meant allowing her to be in danger, more so than she already was, anyway. He couldn't risk that.

"The answer is no, Riley. I'm sorry, I won’t sign off on this."

"Shanks…"

"Your safety is my priority, Rye. I'm not gonna allow you to be in any more danger than you already are." With that, he turned and walked away, hoping it would be the last he'd hear of the matter.

For Riley's part, she could be as stubborn and persistent as her captain. She didn't stop bringing it up every so often, careful not to push him, but making sure he knew how she felt. If she had to out-stubborn Shanks, it would be hard, but she'd have to try.

Previous - Chapter 2: Conditions and Compromise

Next - Chapter 4: Rescue and Reconciliation